Beyond Ballot Boxes: How Social Media Reshaped National Elections

This forthcoming Springer volume examines how social media platforms have transformed electoral politics: reshaping how candidates communicate, how voters receive and process political information, how campaigns are targeted, and how democratic integrity is threatened by algorithmic amplification of extreme content, coordinated inauthentic behaviour, and foreign interference. The scope is comparative, examining national elections across multiple political systems and media environments.

The relationship between social media and elections is now one of the most studied questions in political communication, but the evidence base remains contested and the policy implications disputed. This volume contributes to the comparative empirical record — essential for understanding which dynamics are platform-specific, which are universal, and which are contingent on regulatory or political context. For practitioners working on electoral integrity, platform governance, or FIMI detection in electoral contexts, the comparative case study approach provides the kind of grounded evidence that general theoretical frameworks cannot.