The ‘noisy’ mediasociality

: making sense of everyday online interventions and interactions about Northern Ireland’s politics

Abstract

This thesis examines the unfolding social media engagement of a diverse universe of a few hundred users concerned with and vocal on the politics and current affairs of Northern Ireland. The research took place on Twitter and in Facebook debate groups, and followed the everyday posting of, among others, politicians, journalists, activists, anonymous accounts, and many ordinary users. Based on this ethnographic tracking, on the double – online and offline – observation of political events, and on interviews, the present work describes how the intense social media interventions and interactions could unfold into meaningful forms of political action and participation. I contend that these forms of action and participation define the online routine I investigated as a consequential political phenomenon in Northern Ireland. In this way, this thesis demonstrates the complexities that the online has added to the region’s political landscape. The social media engagement discussed here is revealing of the contemporary ambivalences of an increasingly diverse Northern Ireland. This engagement is approached in this thesis as a situated sociality. The concern here is less with the social media platforms themselves, and much more with what people do, and the exchanges they enact, in these platforms. I employ the term mediasociality to refer to the expressional and interactive possibilities that are proper to these physically absent online environments, and their relationality through posts. In the case of my fieldsite, the political and Northern Ireland-related mediasociality I tracked was characterised by a dynamics in which the drive of its participants to circulate and promote their political opinions and narratives in and through the online intertwined with the everyday contacts, connections and relationships, also facilitated by the online, of the same users. As I argue, this intertwining of drive with everydayness is key for making sense of the perceived ‘noisiness’ of the situated mediasociality, and understanding the aforementioned forms of political action and participation.

Thesis is embargoed until 31 July 2026.

Date of Award	Jul 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Queen's University Belfast
Supervisor	Evi Chatzipanagiotidou (Supervisor) & Dominic Bryan (Supervisor)