Zizi Papacharissi‘s book Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology and Politics was selected by the Human Communication and Technology Division (HCTD), of the National Communication Association as the winner of the 2015 HCTD Outstanding Book Award.

In her book she writes:  “I understand affective publics as networked publics that are mobilized and connected (or disconnected) through expressions of sentiment. . . The practices of these publics present a departure from the rationally based deliberative protocols of public spheres, and help us reimagine how we may define and understand civic discourse among networked crowds in a digital era. While emotion has never been absent from the construction of political expression, romanticized idealizations of past civic eras magnify the significance of rational discourse and skim over the affective infrastructure of civic engagement. My effort [with this book]  involves synthesizing research findings to present a theoretical model for understanding affective publics: public formations that are textually rendered into being through emotive expressions that spread virally through networked crowds. . . In the end technologies network us, but it is our stories that connect us.”
She was recently interviewed by Henry Jenkins where she has a great discussion about her book and publics in the digital age.