The Use of Social Media as a Structuring Process for Informal Modes of Political Participation: the Case of Dumpster Diving

Numerous scholars have observed a transformation in the modes of political participation and engagement in Western democratic societies. Citizens, they argue, are more and more engaged in informal forms of political participation and engagement, which are characterized by a low level of coordination, more or less ad hoc forms or organization, and a focus on specific issues outside the realm of institutions and organizations. For some, social media has played a definite role in this transformation. It is, at once, a factor that has been credited to facilitate or even encourage this transformation, and a site where informal modes of political participation and engagement take place. Yet, and counterintuitively, social media also seems to be playing a role in formalizing informal modes of political participation and engagement. Our preliminary results suggest that social media, seen as tier or facilitator, is structuring informal modes of political participation and engagement in many ways. Using the case of practices of dumpster diving and drawing on data from semi-directed interviews and nethnographic observations of two Facebook groups, we show how the use of social media helps normalize, routinize, and structure a practice usually characterized as informal. Our findings suggest a transformation of informal practices through time that raises questions on the definition of informal political participation and its conceptual and practical differentiation from formal, or conventional political participation.