The Ambivalences of the Citizen Marketer Concept: A Response to Tabassum Ruhi Khan

Abstract

The document raises important questions about the relative power of citizens in digital flows of persuasive political communication at a time when corporations, states, and other elite institutions have invested extraordinary resources into exploiting social media for their advantage. Since the book was written, revelations about the systematic manipulation of political message circulation by professional operatives through the use of social bots and other deceptive tactics—including the widely reported efforts by Russian state agents to influence democratic elections around the world—has undoubtedly shifted the parameters of many of the debates explored in its pages.