ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relationship between technology and politics in the contemporary context. It examines the conditions under which opportunities for change may emerge as people come together and engage with technology and politics. The chapter synthesizes theory and research on collective action, the policy process and social media to propose a theoretical framework for understanding the role technology can play in politics. Affective publics materialize and disband around connective conduits of sentiment every day, and find their voice through the soft structures of feeling sustained by societies. W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg understand connective action as a normative predisposition for individuals who align with issue publics on the basis of life politics. Applied together, the constructs of affective publics and connective action help illuminate how punctuated equilibrium theory affords windows of opportunity, through which social change can occur.
