Zizi Papacharissi just published a new article in the Journal of Communication.  Her article, authored with Maria de Fatima Oliveira, is titled Affective News and Networked Publics: The Rhythms of News Storytelling on #Egypt.  (Click on title for a link to the paper.)  The article examined Twitter use during the Arab Spring uprisings between Jan. 2011 and Feb. 2011.  The authors found that the political crisis resulted in a stream of “affective news” which sustained a sense of community among #Egypt users (among other things).