The performative role of hashtags in the politicization of Europe: Twitter and European elections in 2014

The chapter analyses Twitter as one of the several fora where the general public sphere manifests itself. The Twitter debate generated in Italy during the campaign for EP2014 is used as a prism for looking in depth into the mutual shaping between the specific grammar of the micro-blogging platform and the ongoing politicization of the EU within and across national politics. The contribution looks at the ways in which specific socio-communicative features of Twitter have became deeply interlaced with the emergence of Europe-related structure of meanings. Special attention is paid to the performative role of hashtags in summoning publics and in triggering a peculiar kind of ambient affiliation that is more than mere connectivity and rather involves the opening of a discursive space where negotiation of meanings becomes possible.