This thesis examines the role of social media in Cambodia’s political process, in terms of the affordances and limitations of networked digital platforms for progressive social actors and the adaptive strategies of authoritarian forces. Its purpose is to understand the use and meaning of social media for elite and everyday users in Cambodia, and the influence of such technology on the practice of politics, including at times of electoral competition. Through a qualitative research approach involving the triangulation of four research methods, including 60 in-depth interviews, a media diary-keeping exercise, a focus group discussion, and thematic analysis of 15 months of social media posts by four leading political figures, the study focuses on Cambodia’s 2017 and 2018 election period to assess the character and place of social media in the political process. The findings of this research provide insight as to how senior Cambodian political figures, civil society actors, and everyday people use social media platforms, and the meaning attributed, and agency imagined, of that usage on a personal, political, and symbolic level. The study engages with the work of Pierre Bourdieu as a theoretical frame through which to investigate and interpret key themes identified in analysis of the data gathered during fieldwork in 2017 and 2018. Bourdieu’s field theory and related concepts assist in understanding the persistence and replication of dominant societal and political structures in Cambodia despite substantial social and technological transformation. The research findings de-centre technology in revealing social and symbolic processes in a new information and communication environment. In doing so, the study contributes to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of social media in terms of agentic affordances and constraints, and the centrality of community and historical context in the process of communication, mediation, and the personal strategies of individuals living under repressive regimes.