ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the Social network sites come to constitute the tools for an emerging anti-establishment digital mass politics through the notion of 'populism 2.0'. The phenomenon of 'populism 2.0' needs to be understood in the context of the politics of the popular wave. The term 'popular wave' designates a cycle of contention against austerity politics and a corrupt political class sparked by the economic crisis of 2007-2008 and the widespread discontent the crisis caused, with rising levels of unemployment and cuts to public services. At the heart of the popular wave lies a recurrent stress on the need for a real democracy and more specifically a direct democracy to supersede what activists see as the inauthentic representative democracy manifested in parliamentary and party politics. The party struggles for what it calls 'democracy 4.0', which is a direct democracy facilitated by electronic technologies of communication.
