In this essay, I further explicate the construct of affective publics by drawing elements from two case studies, the first focusing on uses of Twitter leading up to and following the events surrounding the resignation of Hosni Mubarak via #egypt, and the second one focusing on online iterations of the Occupy movement, and specifically #ows, one of the more connective and central tags of the movement. I explore what mediated feelings of connectedness do for politics and networked publics in the digital age, and explore their impact on structures of storytelling, sentiment, and the mediality of events broadcast through different platforms. Technologies network us, but it is our stories that connect us.
Zizi Papacharissi (2015) studied this question.