THE DEMOCRATIC POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA: A THEORETICAL REVIEW Yevhen Laniuk

Анотація

The paper analyzes the approaches of several notable researchers to the issue whether social media promotes democracy. It generalizes some of the crucial theoretical arguments, elaborated by these scholars, and divides them into two groups – cyber-optimists and cyber-skeptics. The fi rst group of scholars argues that social media has become coordinating tools for almost all modern world political movements – from broad and nationwide to small and local, – while the second questions its ability to produce any pro-democratic changes per se. In the end the paper proposes a theoretical framework, in which the relationship between social media and political institutions can be analyzed. In particular, it argues that social media causes merging between mass and interpersonal communication, and, in doing so, challenges the link between media and political institutions, which, according to the classic book “Four Theories of the Press” (F. Siebert, T. Peterson and W. Schramm), characterized media in the epoch of traditional broadcast and printed outlets.