Phantom Politics develops a new framework for understanding how humans, bots, and AI systems interact on social media platforms and structure political communication. Focusing primarily on X (formerly Twitter), it analyzes three cases: the 2017 Women’s March, the 2019 “Build the Wall” discourse, and U.S. federal election discourse in 2024, to demonstrate how X functions not only as a mirror of political trends but also as a driver of change in the digital public sphere. The book shows how political participation is shaped by both authentic political expression and bot-driven narratives. It introduces new concepts to explain how AI-generated political speech can appear human while remaining detached from a human speaker, raising urgent questions about agency, accountability, and political voice. At a time when AI technologies are becoming increasingly integrated into public life, the book examines how emerging forms of automation are reshaping democratic discourse, challenging traditional understandings of participation, and transforming the ways political ideas circulate, gain visibility, and influence public debate.

MINA MOMENI is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Preface
Introduction     
1    Redefining the Theory of Affordances     
2    Conceptualizing the Affordances of Social Media Platforms     
3    Affordances in Practice: The 2017 Women March    
4    Social Media Bots      
5    Twitter Bots and Building the Wall Discourse     
6    AI-Powered Bots: Intelligent Members of the Political Sphere?        
Final Reflections 
References
Index