Critical Security Studies In The Digital Age Social Media And Security Joseph Downing by Joseph Downing 9783031207334, 3031207335 instant download after payment.

This book offers a comprehensive engagement with critical security studies in light of changes in communications technologies that disrupt, supplant, and compliment the traditional discursive landscape upon which much of critical security studies is constructed. The book presents conceptual, methodological, and empirical arguments about social media and security, drawing together a range of security perspectives, namely the schools of security studies, critical terrorism studies, and vernacular security studies in Copenhagen, Wales, and Paris. This book demonstrates that the disciplinary boundaries present within international relations takes on security studies are redundant when examining social media, and inter- and multi-disciplinary analysis is key. It is also demonstrated that when examining the social media, sphere security scholars need to ‘expect the unexpected’. Social media enables users to subvert, contest, and create security narratives with symbols and idioms of their choice which can take into account ‘traditional’ security themes, but also unexpected and under explored themes such as narratives from the local context of the users’ towns and cities and the symbolism of football clubs. The book also demonstrates that social media has a complex topography when considering security speak—being neither elite nor hierarchical as the Copenhagen School conceptualizes security speak, but also neither flat nor egalitarian as suggested by vernacular security studies’ non-elite approach. Rather, its topography is shifting and dynamic, with individuals gaining influence in security debates in unpredictable ways. In examining social media, scholars are also required to engage with the emancipatory burden of critical security studies. This book argues that it remains unfulfilled on social media and rather presents a ‘thin’ notion of discursive emancipation where social media does provide the ability for previously excluded voices to participate in security debates, even if this does not result in their direct emancipation from power hierarchies.