Dear All, We are delighted to announce the publication of the special issue on Social Media and Protest Identities of the journal Information, Communication and Society. The special issue examines the continuing relevance and transformation of the process of collective identity in contemporary activism with particular reference to the use of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter across movements as Occupy, the indignados and Anonymous. Please find below a summary of the special issue and a list of all the articles which can be accessed here http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/18/8#.Ve3KmHvSiKx Best, Paolo Gerbaudo and Emiliano Treré --------------------------------------------------- SOCIAL MEDIA AND PROTEST IDENTITIES Special Issue of Information, Communication & Society - Volume 18, Issue 8, 2015 http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/18/8#.Ve3KmHvSiKx edited by Paolo Gerbaudo and Emiliano Treré How does collective identity operate in social media activism across protest movements as Occupy Wall Street, the indignados and Anonymous? What are the different social media practices involved in the construction of collective identity? And how do forms of collective identity produced via social media reflect the affordances of these communication technologies and the dilemmas of digital society? Examining these and similar questions, this special issue sets out to explore the changing nature of collective identity in a digital era and to establish what opportunities and threats the new media ecology brings to processes of identity construction in contemporary protest movements. The contributions to the special issue recognize and problematize collective identity as a central object of concern for digital activists and conceive social media as platforms in which new identities are forged and channelled. The authors demonstrate that social media has become the key site where protest identities are created, channelled, and contested. Far from having disappeared from the horizon of contemporary activism, collective identity still constitutes a pivotal question for activists and scholars alike; one which is decisive to understand the emergence, persistence, and decline of protest movements, and to discern their meaning and worldview. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION In search of the ‘we’ of social media activism: introduction to the special issue on social media and protest identities Paolo Gerbaudo, Emiliano Treré ARTICLES Creating the Collective: Social Media, the Occupy Movement and its Constitution as a Collective Actor Anastasia Kavada

From Social Movements to Cloud Protesting: the evolution of collective identity Stefania Milan

Reclaiming, proclaiming, and maintaining collective identity in the #YoSoy132 movement in Mexico: an examination of digital frontstage and backstage activism through social media and instant messaging platforms Emiliano Treré Protest avatars as memetic signifiers: political profile pictures and the construction of collective identity on social media in the 2011 protest wave Paolo Gerbaudo Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M collective identity Arnau Monterde, Miguel Aguilera, Xabier E. Barandiaran, Antonio Calleja, John Postill The Rise and Fall of Collective Identity in Networked Movements: Communication Protocols, Facebook, and the Anti-Berlusconi Protest Lorenzo Coretti, Daniele Pica

From Indymedia to Anonymous: rethinking action, identity and digital communications Kevin McDonald

FINAL COMMENTARY Do clouds have politics? Tracing the Meanders of Collective Identity Amid Social Media Maria Bakardjieva http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rics20/18/8#.VeiHi7fSiKw Dr Paolo Gerbaudo, Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society, Culture, Media and Creative Industries Department, Room 217A, 2nd Floor, Norfolk Building, King's College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, England Phone: +44 (0)20 78481576 NEW BOOK: Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism (Pluto, 2012) - www.tweetsandthestreets.org