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The role of public participation and citizen engagement in EU governance has clearly grown in importance over the past decade. Saurugger ; EC This noteworthy upgrade of participatory elements represents a major shift in the governance regime of the European Union. According to Saurugger , a participatory turn emerged in the official discourse at EU level during the s and was gradually transformed into a norm in basic documents and into governance reform programmes.

However, the actual quality and scope of the postulated participatory turn is still contested and is ambiguous in its implementation.

It is questionable whether the turn has effectively taken place to the same extent in practice as in rhetoric Kohler-Koch and Quittkat ; Lindner et al.

Nevertheless, the participative democracy discourse has also found some manifestations in the Member States, as traditional governance regimes have been questioned and participatory elements have received more attention there. There is also a growing demand for the knowledge and expertise required to cope with increasing problem complexity in the multilevel governance of advanced societies.

This change encourages citizen participation because of the benefits of inputs, which are functional for enhanced problem-solving and the quality of decisions. Some commentators argue that participation has even become both a moralising discourse, expecting responsible citizens to actively contribute to problem-solving, and a normative discourse, treating participation as a means to cure the alienation between governments and the governed Smith and Dalakiouridou : 3; Jessop The thriving availability of new electronic means is certainly reinforcing the upswing of the participation discourse and to some extent also participation practice at the EU level.

The debate about the democratic or political effects of new Internet-based modes of communication has always been characterised by a polarisation between far-reaching positive and optimistic expectations on the one side, and pessimistic expectations of detrimental effects on democratic structures and processes on the other.

This discursive feature also applies to discussions around the most recent format of Internet communication, which is the use of social media by all kinds of political actors.

The focus of this section is the relationship between the use of social media, political communication and democratic politics in general. The relevance of social media will also be briefly touched upon from a specific perspective in the following chapter on the European public sphere Chap.

Secondly, social media and social networking sites attract extremely high user numbers. The social networking site Facebook has over 1 billion users worldwide. Youtube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter and Instagram are among the most popular platforms in the world Alexa And thirdly, numerous political events involving social media have heightened interest in the interplay of politics and the use of social media for political purposes Gibson : 2; Sandoval-Almazan and Gil-Garcia : On the other side of the coin, the same social media increasingly seem to be gateways for and platforms of authoritarian, anti-democratic tendencies, manipulation and surveillance Fuchs ; Schill and Hendricks ; Carty ; Bradshaw and Howard ; Postill ; Wardle and Derakhsan As with previous media innovations, the rise of social media quickly spurred hopes for democratic renewal.

Particularly, the open and collaborative features of many Web 2. At this point however, there seems to be considerably more disagreement about the role of social media in the political sphere than in most areas in the field of Internet research. Both theoretical and conceptual contributions, as well as empirical investigations, often deliver contradictory claims and lines of reasoning, making it particularly difficult to identify a common ground of understanding in the field. Both pessimistic and optimistic accounts find support Skoric et al.

One reason for this deep disagreement within the academic literature might be that the discussions about the role of social media in democratic politics are facing higher levels of complexity compared to the debates of the s. Since then, the media landscapes have become far more developed, and the new media today are both highly entangled with traditional mass media, and deeply embedded in daily practices, increasing the difficulties for analysts to capture their impact Dahlgren : 1.

In fact, social media have strongly transformed the way people use the Internet, taking advantage of new possibilities to connect, interact and exchange information Price : In comparison, social media allow for the undemanding, fast establishment and maintenance of online social networks and personal ties.

The structural characteristics of the new Internet ecology Skoric et al. From the perspective of information exchange and political discourse, the importance of quasi-personal ties between peers, which are a key characteristic of social media, have important implications for the acceptance of information exchanges: Information and news received from someone a user knows is more likely to be accepted, believed and trusted than information from other sources Carty While the removal of traditional gatekeepers can have empowering effects for citizens, especially for underrepresented groups, information and discursive contributions from social media peers can also be manipulated.

Bradshaw and Howard show how governments and government-sponsored groups worldwide are engaged in actively influencing information exchange and debates in social media by applying a broad range of methods, ranging from content generation, establishment of fake user accounts to forms of computational propaganda. In the following, the key debates on the role of social media in political communication and democratic politics, as represented in the relevant academic literature, will be summarised.

To a large extent, the interest in social media and their potential impact on political communication and democracy has to be understood in the context of the broader discussions about liberal democracy and what many would label as a crisis.

The challenges faced by contemporary democracies include declining civic and political engagement, declining party loyalty and low turnout rates, growing cynicism, a sense of decreasing political efficacy, and a seemingly rising attractiveness of anti-liberal and anti-democratic tendencies. At the same time, new, alternative forms of political engagement outside the formal representative institutions—sometimes labelled as counter publics or alternative politics —seem to be thriving Carty ; Herrera ; Margetts et al.

These accounts are primarily based on specific features and characteristics of social media. Most importantly, social media are credited with the ability to foster horizontal communication, making it easier to connect individuals and groups online, support diversity and provide spaces for opinion formation beyond and independent from established institutions Dahlgren ; Imhof Loader and Mercea : identified further impacts of social media on political communication and democratic politics.

These include the power of collaboration and sharing, as demonstrated, for instance, by Wikileaks, or the increasingly blurred divisions between mainstream news media and social media as the large media corporations rely more and more on political blogs and other forms of user-generated content also Imhof : 16; Jenkins Inspired by the technical opportunities offered by social media, some authors view the new virtual spaces as media for creative, playful identity constructions and self-constitution.

With regard to the political sphere, these accounts are closely related to characterisations of social media as spaces which facilitate dialogue and democratic participation e.

Benkler ; Bruns Imhof : 16 diagnosed a broadly accepted expectation among many authors that social media will realise a global democratic participatory culture. Others, however, counter that the availability of these communicative capacities will not automatically change patterns of political engagement.

Political participation is the result of the complex interplay of different factors, of which access to digital media may be only one Dahlgren ; Vowe What is more, empirically, activities related to politics are extremely rare compared to dominant activities aimed at sociality, entertainment and consumption.

In addition, more and more empirical evidence is emerging to show the detrimental effects of social media use on democratic processes. This brief overview touched upon different contentious areas of debate in the literature. In the following, two of these themes will be presented in greater detail.

While few dispute that the characteristics of online communities and discursive spaces facilitated by social media differ significantly from the types of communicative exchanges constituting the public sphere at least in its ideal-typical, theoretical guises, see Chap. A number of researchers argue that the traditional definition of the political needs to be broadened to include more than rational debate understood as the contrary to affect and sentiment Caldon : In view of the new forms of mediatised discourses and emergent types of affiliation in social media, some propose integrating non-rational dimensions in contemporary understandings of the political.

In her book Affective Publics , Papacharissi argues that the dominating conception of the political is outdated. It should be developed further with the aim of taking into account affective dimensions, such as personal emotions, feelings, storytelling and the like, which are increasingly becoming relevant in political discourse.

Beyer shares this basic view and argues that our understanding of the political in virtual spaces is being transformed due to the ubiquity of digital media in daily life. As the boundaries between online and offline, public and private, become progressively blurred, she argues that anonymous, fragmented and often unfocused online associations in social media can potentially influence the political sphere. Banaji and Buckingham also attempt to contribute to a redefinition of the political and the concept of citizenship.

Similarly to Papacharissi, they view features of popular culture, which are currently not part of traditional political discourse, such as emotions and pleasure, as possible elements of new forms of cultural citizenship Banaji and Buckingham : 5.

In this regard, Dahlgren : 2 is more prosaic, but follows similar lines of reasoning when he states that the constituency of politics has become more complex given the many new representations it can take, including personal, single issue, lifestyle, cultural, identity politics and so on. Taken together, this discussion suggests a critical revision or even replacement of the established model of the public sphere Loader and Mercea : Instead, conceptions of a networked citizen-centred model, which provides the opportunity to connect private spheres of autonomous identity to a multitude of deliberately chosen political spaces are receiving some attention Papacharissi ; Loader and Mercea : But the discussion does prompt research to be analytically open to the emerging models of political communication that reach beyond rational deliberative exchanges.

These new playful repertoires of using social media could in some ways be regarded as facets of the political. In the following, the qualitative effects of the broadened repertoire of communicative actions made available through social media will be discussed with regard to different aspects of political participation. As is well known, a fundamental prerequisite for any form of active political involvement is the access to and reception of politically relevant information.

Social media are said to have a high potential to change both the traditional patterns of information flows as well as their production.

The current research landscape in this field is highly specialised and, on the whole, tends to be rather inconclusive at this point. With the advent of social media, the number of discursive online spaces has expanded significantly. While this observation is not disputed in the literature reviewed, the characteristics, meaning and effects of these ever-expanding virtual spaces on political communication are highly controversial Caldon : Do these discursive spaces, often labelled as micro- or counter publics, spill over into the real world of politics?

While some studies show the emergence of counter publics under certain conditions e. Leung and Lee , the effects for the public sphere are increasingly being discussed Tripodi ; Momeni Some authors question the political relevance of the communities occupying the social networking sites. Imhof : 18f. The online communities are constituted by the reproduction of emotional ties, in-group and out-group differentiation and shared norms Gebhardt : ff. As the communication patterns observed are predisposed towards the reproduction of shared life-views and moral beliefs, online communities tend to become homogenous.

These processes of social closure can be reinforced by the effects of search engines and the like-algorithms of Facebook, which are based on previous online activities, offering users systematically more of the same Andrejevic ; Gerlitz ; Hong and Nadler : From this perspective, communication patterns in social media are currently far from establishing a worldwide participatory culture Imhof : Price : notes that, at least in theory, social media provide many additional opportunities to contribute to a better-informed public, thereby increasing the diversity of sources and views.

However, Chen observes that relevant information, which actually triggers political activity is most often provided by existing, well-established groups and organisations. Some literature suggests that through social media sites such as Facebook, users are exposed incidentally to news that they are not actively seeking out.

Some findings in this literature suggest that social media enlarges the social networks of individuals, and this might increase the likelihood of exposure to politically relevant, mobilising information Boulianne : Others view the role of ties to political or activist organisations as decisive. Findings suggest that people who belong to more organisations are also more likely to engage in political or civic activities Bode et al.

In addition to the—currently unresolved—question of if and how social media impact mobilisation and participation in terms of quantity, the literature also reflects on the quality of the communicative exchanges in these online environments. On the whole, the literature reviewed tends to share critical perspectives. Kies analyses a large variety of online political forums applying a discourse quality index with a number of deliberative criteria and draws more differentiated conclusions.

However, using an adapted version of this index Kersting for a comparison of deliberation quality in web forums in and , Kersting underlined existing problems with deliberation: the majority being characterised by monologues instead of dialogues, lacking reflexive deliberation and mutual respect of discussion partners, and even showing a decrease of discourse quality over time.

Empirical research has shown that political blogs tend to be strongly opinion-based, are weak with regard to the representation of facts and often offer radical positions. With a focus on the quality of dialogue on Twitter, Jericho : drew rather sceptical conclusions about this microblogging platform as a forum of debate. He observes that political tweets are dominated by twitspits where political opponents engage in political confrontation but not in real dialogue.

Similar findings are reported in Loader and Mercea : Contrary to many expectations about the potential to infuse more diversity into public debates, political blogs tend to overwhelmingly respond to topics and stories presented by mainstream news media. Along this line of reasoning, some authors also observe the shrinking of the blogosphere, thereby further reducing the potential for more diversity of views, perspectives and opinions.

This process is said to be caused by two developments. Paterson such as Facebook. And particularly political blogs run by ambitious lay journalists are increasingly being linked to and cooperate with large media corporations as part of their social media strategies, creating structures of co-dependency Davis : 77; Imhof : 16f.

Other authors Fox and Ramos : 39; Wardle and Derakhsan contend that the broad range of opportunities to retrieve information through the Internet, and particularly social media, has encouraged content providers to increasingly target information to different, politically narrow audiences, thereby increasing the likelihood of spreading misinformation.

However, Redden : 70 argues that the new news sources do counter and challenge much of mainstream media coverage. Given the decline in traditional political participation in political parties and established interest groups such as labour unions, social media have often been seen to have the potential to facilitate alternative routes for participation due to their specific characteristics, such as low entry barriers and low costs. In fact, Chen : ff. However, these online-based forms of political participation are being debated with regard to their political impact.

The literature is sceptical about forms of online activism that do not reach beyond the comfortable media-centred mode of political engagement where political commitment remains largely effortless Dahlgren : 4.

A variant of political participation, which has received increasing attention, is political consumerism e. Baringhorst et al. While this expectation is by and large supported by the data analysed, the authors raise the interesting question of whether political consumerism is actually political. In this view, the characteristics of political consumerism as a lifestyle choice and a form of civic action, which is subject to sharing and peer commentary, might explain the positive relationship between social media use and conscious, ethically motivated consumption.

Social media provide the opportunity for individual politicians and parliamentarians to engage in exchange and dialogue directly with citizens. A number of studies have examined the social media use of parliamentarians and political parties, leading to rather sobering findings. Jackson and Lilleker show that most political parties refrain from taking advantage of the interactive features of social media, primarily initiating unidirectional information flows.

Other research identifies a tendency on the side of party organisations to keep communication activity under control Pedersen Much research is conducted on the impact of social media on political opinions and behaviours of citizens. Dahlgren attempts to understand the role of social media within social contexts, in order to identify what true democratic potential they hold.

He warns that weaknesses in democratic systems cannot be solved through social media or media technologies alone, but that this is a job which must lie with citizens. A special emphasis is placed on the value of social media for alternative politics. On the other hand, there are concerns such as the digital divide, the fact that political engagement does not follow purely from Internet and social media access, cyberbullying and harassment, and of course the fear of social media being abused for political surveillance and control, and for deliberate attempts to spread misinformation Bradshaw and Howard Burnett and Bloice examined Twitter posts during three televised debates about Scottish Independence leading up to the Scottish Referendum, concluding that posts linking to a variety of resources did have positive effects on unifying perspectives and supporter activism, but did not change political opinions.

This makes the impact of social media on the outcome of the Scottish Referendum questionable. Riezebos et al. Hong and Nadler support findings from Hindmann that the rate of political mobilisation is not increased through the use of the Internet, stating that online political voices are mostly made up of a small number of large organisations and networks see also van der Graaf et al. The question of whether social media leads to online or offline participation has frequently been posed, results being inconclusive and even contradictory.

Vissers et al. Contradicting these results is the conclusion of Theocharis and Lowe based on their experimental study involving young Greek participants, that the use of Facebook has clear negative impacts on all forms of participation. They conclude with mixed findings regarding this question, with online and offline versions of participatory activities such as petitioning or contacting politicians being interchangeable.

Other activities, such as news consumption, appear to be medium-dependent. Gibson and McAllister claim that political participation is positively affected by social interactions in the offline world, and that it is therefore of interest to closer examine the effects of different online networks. They used the Australian Election Study, a national self-completed survey conducted after federal elections, from , in order to examine the effects of interactions with bonding and bridging networks.

According to Gibson and McAllister, bonding networks consist of individuals with whom one has an already established relationship in the offline world, while bridging networks are new networks consisting of people who may have little in common in terms of background or culture. Nam also voices the limited potential of the Internet to increase inclusiveness and, therefore, equality of civic participation in political matters. This is enforced by Cho and Keum , who demonstrate that socio-economic factors play a smaller role for political expression on social networking sites than in political discussions held in the offline realm.

Bicking et al. They note the lack of a social media strategy in most observed cases, leaving untapped potential in the areas of opinion-mining and bidirectional thought exchange, as well as raising the number of participants and gathering support.

It could generally be observed that most of the cases did not successfully achieve any direct policy changes, though policy contributions were made Bicking et al. Local government websites in the USA seem not to have any influence on the participation of citizens in the policymaking process Garrett and Jensen However, the design of the website can be an important factor in mobilising citizens Zheng and Schachter , design of online spaces having an impact on the political participation and deliberation of citizens Steibel and Estevez It is not only of interest how the public engages with social media; the social media use of politicians can also provide helpful insights into how the dialogue between citizens and government officials is changing and whether this is leading towards higher levels of e-participation.

Here they recognise potential for increased e-participation. Zheng et al. Reddick and Norris used a national survey of e-participation among US local governments to determine demand to be the driving factor behind political support, with the success of e-participation efforts relying on top-level support, citizen demand and formal planning. Before concluding this chapter, the contribution of social media to new social and political movements should be acknowledged, such as in the cases of the London and South African demonstrations in and , the protests in Stuttgart and Istanbul in and , the Occupy movements, and the Arab Spring Norris ; Abbott ; Herrera Furthermore, social media can be utilised for information dissemination and organisation outside of traditional media, which can be under government control Wilson and Corey as quoted in Dunne Conversely, social media platforms are increasingly being targeted by governments to influence and manipulate public opinion online, in some cases using covert, non-transparent and illegitimate methods Bradshaw and Howard ; Fuchs Dunne points to regional differences concerning mobilisation through social media, claiming that certain Western citizens simply do not harbour a strong enough will to increase online or offline direct democracy, due to lack of time or interest, arguing that we would otherwise see more protests of individuals trying to effect change.

The discussions and findings in the academic literature dealing with the role social media play in political communication and democratic politics presented in this review by and large reflect a field of academic inquiry, which is still in full motion. Key questions are currently far from being settled—an assessment that comes as no surprise given the relatively recent advent of social media about 10 years ago.

Nonetheless, at a general level, some very tentative conclusions might be drawn from the literature review on the political dimensions of social media. Research tends to agree that social media are playing an increasingly important role in civic and political lives, as these communication opportunities are taken up by social movements, activists, political parties and governments. However, while numerous studies have attempted to provide evidence for tangible political effects of social media use on the levels and quality of political engagement, by and large the transformative power often associated with social media still remains more a potential possibility than a reality confirmed by sound empirical evidence Williamson et al.

Even if finding evidence for these far-reaching expectations about the impact of social media on democracy remain a pressing topic for research, academics and experts in the field should also address the issue of to what extent social media are able to fulfil core functions of public communication such as critique, legitimation and integration Imhof Making sense of malicious distortions of information exchange and debate, as well as of the allegedly increasing role of the private, the personal affective and emotional perspectives in politics, and thinking ahead about ways for democratic institutions to respond to this possible transformation seems expedient.

Finally, in order to avoid the reproduction of old myths about the transformative potential of social media, future research in this dynamic field should also take the broader media ecology into consideration.

More careful contextualisations, which reflect the dynamic interrelationships between traditional news media, digital media, and the publics and their undercurrents, will help to avoid the traps of technological determinism. E-democracy is now a widely applied term, which describes a broad scope of practices of online engagement of the public in political decision-making and opinion-forming. With regard to theoretical concepts of democracy, e-democracy is usually based on models of participatory and deliberative democracy.

Far-reaching, overly enthusiastic expectations of a fundamental transformation of modern democracy through the application of online tools for political participation and public discourse are fading after two decades of experiences with e-democracy, opening space for accounts that are more conceptually and analytically robust and less techno-determinist.

There is, however, little doubt that e-democracy will add new modes of communication among citizens and between actors of representative democracy and their constituencies. These changes not only add to the online political processes, but also affect the modes and conditions of offline political processes in many ways.

They are dependent on the great variety of e-democracy tools applied, the nature of the political process these are embedded in, and the skills, demands and expectations of those involved in their application. Research into the impact of social media on democracy remains inconclusive and only allows us to draw some very tentative conclusions on the political dimensions of social media.

The literature tends to agree that social media play an increasingly important role in civic and political lives, as these communication opportunities are not only taken up by social movements and activists, but also by governments and government-sponsored groups. However, while numerous studies have attempted to provide evidence for tangible political effects from social media use, by and large the transformative power often associated with social media still remains more a potential possibility than a firmly established reality, particularly with regard to established patterns of political participation.

Based on the currently available findings, it can be concluded that social media have ambivalent effects for democratic politics, enabling more inclusive involvement and allowing for the articulation of un der represented perspectives, while at the same time providing powerful opportunities for malicious distortions of discourse, misinformation and communicative closure.

While finding coherent empirical evidence for the impact of social media on democracy remains a pressing topic for research, academics and experts in the field should also address the more fundamental issue of the extent to which social media is able to fulfil core functions of public communication, particularly public critique, legitimation and integration.

Making sense of the allegedly increasing role of personal and emotional perspectives in politics and thinking ahead about ways for democratic institutions to respond to this possible transformation seems more pressing than ever.

What is more, phenomena such as solipsistic closure and echo chambers, deliberate misinformation and computational propaganda are threatening the fundamental workings of the public sphere in democratic contexts, increasing the need for effective educational, regulatory and technological responses.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. Skip to main content Skip to sections. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available.

Advertisement Hide. Open Access. First Online: 07 November Download chapter PDF. The main differences of these and related models can be mapped in a two-dimensional space, depicting the chief aim of the democratic process efficiency vs. The three main models of democracy can be located in this two-dimensional space according to their basic normative orientations.

Other sub-variants of democracy, such as competitive, participative or libertarian democracy, and so on, can be grouped around the three models accordingly Lindner et al. Open image in new window. The purpose of the two-dimensional space is to provide some basic orientation with regard to the different understandings of democracy in general and the Internet-based variants in particular: Arguably, preferences for a certain model of democracy will most likely determine the type of e-democracy a proponent seeks to establish.

A collection of contributions, which focus both on theoretical and practical issues involved with the relationship between new media and democracy, offers an authoritative starting point Hacker and van Dijk a. Recommends that Member States: 1.



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