Minority Languages in the Age of Networked Individualism: From Social Networks to Digital Breathing Spaces

In this chapter Daniel Cunliffe explores the ramifications of social media for speakers of regional and minority languages (RMLs) and assesses the new kinds of networks and communities that they have engendered. He focuses in particular on the ways in which these new networks may serve as digital ‘breathing spaces’ for RMLs, examining the necessary characteristics of such digital breathing spaces and the challenges that arise in connection with the creation and maintenance of such spaces. As information and communication technology continues to develop, he argues, it will be increasingly necessary to consider online and offline social networks as a single, inseparable social network in which the social use of minority languages takes place.