The Citizen Marketer

The Citizen Marketer: Promoting Political Opinion in the Social Media Age By Joel Penney Oxford University Press, 2017 In the digital age, everyday people are playing a significant role in shaping public opinion through grassroots circulation of political media messages. This phenomenon is transforming the landscape of political communication, with citizens actively circulating persuasive content to advance their interests. The citizen marketer is guided by marketing principles, but unlike passive consumers, they take an active part in promoting their preferred ideas. Citizens engage in various practices, such as using protest symbols on social media profiles, sharing politically-charged internet memes and videos, and displaying mass-produced merchandise with political messages. For them, these activities are not just about influencing outcomes, but also a statement of their identity. This shift in how political participation is conceptualized and performed has important implications for advanced capitalist democratic societies. This book offers a new framework for understanding the rise of viral political communication, exploring the role of everyday people in promoting political media messages.