Internet and Political Participation: Traditional Question, New Research Designs and Data

Abstract

Studies on offline political participation have for a long time demonstrated a deep participatory divide between those participating a lot – a minority – and a vast majority of citizens taking part to very few political activities. According to some cyberenthusiasts, the internet would have lowered the threshold of participation and allowed new citizens to participate in political life. However, some recent studies have shown contradictory results : while some explains that on-line participation would be mostly done by individuals already involved off-line (Nielsen, 2006), others tend to show the political inclusion of new types of citizens in new ways (Hirzalla, Zoonen & van de Ridder, 2011). The multiplication, the diversification and the development of new modes of online political participation as the provision of new large big data for research can be used to ask this traditional question again. This panel invites thus papers that would study the factors that appear to differentiate citizens in their relation to offline and online participation with innovative research designs and data. Analyses may look at a wide variety of forms of e-participation such as e-petitions, e-protests, mobilisations on social media as well as online political forums. Empirical and theoretically based papers are welcome.

Title	Details
'We get off the PCs and we go to the Square': Greek Blogosphere’s Protest Framing of the Summer 2007 Wildfires	View Paper Details
Cyber-democracy? Information and Communication Technologies in Civil Society Consultations for Sustainable Development	View Paper Details
The e-petitioning, extension or substitute for political participation? A new way to study the sociology of e-petitioners	View Paper Details
The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI): when online participatory practices are used to bypass traditional impediments to Pan-European activism	View Paper Details