This book explores to what extent constitutional principles are put under strain in the social media environment, and how constitutional safeguards can be established for the actors and processes that govern this world: in other words, how to constitutionalise social media. Millions of individuals around the world use social media to exercise a broad range of fundamental rights. However, the governance of online platforms may pose significant threats to our constitutional guarantees. The chapters in this book bring together a multi-disciplinary group of experts from law, political science, and communication studies to examine the challenges of constitutionalising what today can be considered the modern public square. The book analyses the ways in which online platforms exercise a sovereign authority within their digital realms, and sheds light on the ambiguous relationship between social media platforms and state regulators. The chapters critically examine multiple methods of constitutionalising social media, arguing that the constitutional response to the global challenges generated by social media is necessarily plural and multilevel. All topics are presented in an accessible way, appealing to scholars and students in the fields of law, political science and communication studies. The book is an essential guide to understanding how to preserve constitutional safeguards in the social media environment.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction Edoardo Celeste (Dublin City University, Ireland), Amélie Heldt (Leibniz Institute for Media Research, Germany) and Clara Iglesias Keller (WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany) PART 1 SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MODERN PUBLIC SQUARE 2. Social Media and Protest: Contextualising the Affordances of Networked Publics Tetyana Lokot (Dublin City University, Ireland) 3. The Rise of Social Media in the Middle East and North Africa: A Tool of Resistance or Repression? Amy Kristin Sanders (University of Texas at Austin, USA) 4. Legal Framings in Networked Public Spheres: The Case of Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean Veronica Corcodel (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal) 5. Social Media and the News Industry Alessio Cornia (Dublin City University, Ireland) PART 2 FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND PLATFORMS’ GOVERNANCE 6. Structural Power as a Critical Element of Social Media Platforms’ Private Sovereignty Luca Belli (FGV Direito Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) 7. No Place for Women: Gaps and Challenges in Promoting Equality on Social Media Mariana Valente (University of St Gallen, Switzerland) 8. Social Media, Electoral Campaigns and Regulation of Hybrid Political Communication: Rethinking Communication Rights Eugenia Siapera and Niamh Kirk (both at University College Dublin, Ireland) 9. Data Protection Law: Constituting an Effective Framework for Social Media? Moritz Hennemann (Universität Passau, Germany) PART 3 STATES AND SOCIAL MEDIA REGULATION 10. Regulatory Shift in State Intervention: From Intermediary Liability to Responsibility Giancarlo Frosio (Queen's University Belfast, UK) 11. Government–Platform Synergy and its Perils Niva Elkin-Koren (Tel-Aviv University, Israel) 12. Social Media and State Surveillance in China: The Interplay between Authorities, Businesses and Citizens Yuner Zhu (City University of Hong Kong) 13. The Perks of Co-Regulation: An Institutional Arrangement for Social Media Regulation? Clara Iglesias Keller (WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany) PART 4 CONSTITUTIONALISING SOCIAL MEDIA 14. Changing the Normative Order of Social Media from Within: Supervisory Bodies Wolfgang Schulz (Leibniz-Institute for Media Research, Germany) 15. Content Moderation by Social Media Platforms: The Importance of Judicial Review Amélie P Heldt (Leibniz-Institute for Media Research, Germany) 16. Digital Constitutionalism: In Search of a Content Governance Standard Edoardo Celeste (Dublin City University, Ireland), Nicola Palladino (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), Dennis Redeker (University of Bremen, Germany) and Kinfe Yilma (Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia)