The Logic of Connective Action

W. Lance Bennett is Ruddick C. Lawrence Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he is also director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement (www.engagedcitizen.org). His research and writing addresses how communication processes and technologies can enhance citizen engagement with politics and social life. Bennett has received the Ithiel de Sola Pool Lectureship and the Murray Edelman Distinguished Career Award from the American Political Science Association; a Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, from Uppsala University; the Olof Palme Visiting Professorship in Sweden; and the National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar career award. Alexandra Segerberg is a Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University and Associate Editor of the ECPR Press, the publishing imprint of the European Consortium of Political Research. Her research centers on philosophical, political and empirical theories of collective action.

• Introduction; 1. The logic of connective action; 2. Personalized communication in protest networks; 3. Digital media and the organization of connective action; 4. How organizationally enabled networks engage publics; 5. Networks, power, and political outcomes; 6. Conclusion: when logics collide.

'W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg's The Logic of Connective Action is a welcome introduction to the topic and should, I hope, convince more sociologists that our theories of movements should consider social media as a distinctive resource, one that transforms the way people engage in activism rather than simply augmenting traditional communications … This book makes a strong case that social media and other forms of online activism should grab the attention of social movement scholars.' Brayden G. King, American Journal of Sociology