Pizhuhish nāmah-i intiqādī-i mutūn va barnāmah hā-yi ̒ulūm-i insāni (Critical Studies in Texts & Programs of Human Sciences)

A Critical Analysis on the Book Social Media and Digital Politics: Networked Reason in an Age of Digital Emotion

Document Type : Review Artical

Authors

Abdolrahim Rahimi 1
Mohammad Reza Karimi 2
Mohammad Hossein Larijani 3
Zeinab Shirzad 3

1 Associate Professor, Department of Cultural Management, Faculty of Management, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration and Media, Faculty Member of Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

3 PhD Student in Media Management, Islamic Azad University, South Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.30465/crtls.2026.53313.2973
Abstract
This critical review employs a combined approach of internal critique (analysis of theoretical-methodological coherence) and external critique (comparative assessment against global literature) to examine Lee and Blevins’ (2025) "Social Media and Digital Politics". The findings indicate that the book’s innovative integration of Social Network Analysis and Critical Theory offers a profound understanding of the role of digital emotions and mechanisms such as echo chambers in transforming political discourse. However, key critical outcomes reveal three major limitations: a narrow geographical focus on Western cases, which reduces the generalizability of the findings; a negative bias toward social media, overlooking its positive functions in political mobilization; and a lack of concrete policy recommendations. Consequently, by situating the work within broader international scholarship, this review proposes greater attention to non-Western contexts, a more balanced analysis of social media’s impacts, and the development of actionable guidelines as essential directions for future research and practice.

Keywords

Critical Theory
Digital Emotion
Digital Politics
Echo Chambers
Media Policy
Network Analysis
Subjects
1.       Lee, J. J., & Blevins, J. L. (2025). Social media and digital politics: Networked reason in an age of digital emotion. Routledge.
2.       Castells, M. (2012). Networks of outrage and hope: Social movements in the Internet age. Polity Press.
3.       Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger & F. Lawrence, Trans.). MIT Press.
4.       Barberá, P. (2015). How social media reduces mass political polarization. Evidence from Germany, Spain, and the U.S. American Political Science Review, 109(1), 115–132. 
5.       Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. Oxford University Press.
6.       Sunstein, C. R. (2018). #Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton University Press.
7.       Clark, M. D., & Grecea, V. (2023). Networked solidarity: How social media shapes contemporary activism in the Global South. Information, Communication & Society, 26(5), 1020–1037. 
8.       Mihailidis, P., & Viotty, S. (2017). Spreadable spectacle in digital culture: Civic expression, fake news, and the role of media literacies in “post-fact” society. American Behavioral Scientist, 61(4), 441–454. 
9.       Gillespie, T. (2018). Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, content moderation, and the hidden decisions that shape social media. Yale University Press.
 

  • Receive Date 06 November 2025
  • Revise Date 14 January 2026
  • Accept Date 12 February 2026

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