Digital technologies network us but it is our stories that connect us to each other, making us feel close to some and distancing us from others. Affective Publics explores how storytelling practices on Twitter facilitate affective engagement for publics tuning into a current issue or event by employing three case studies: Arab Spring movements, various iterations of Occupy, and everyday casual political expressions as traced through the archives of trending topics on Twitter.

• Acknowledgments


• Prelude


• Chapter One: The Present Affect


• Chapter Two: Affective News and Networked Publics


• Chapter Three: Affective Demands and the New Political


• Chapter Four: The Personal as Political: Everyday Disruptions of the Political Mainstream


• Chapter Five: Affective Publics


• Notes


• References


• Index

Zizi Papacharissi is Professor and Head of the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She is also the author of A Private Sphere and editor of A Networked Self and the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.