Analogous blind spots

There is an English saying that every problem looks like a nail if all you have is a hammer. Similarly, studies on participation on the Internet are at risk of producing lopsided results if they are overly narrow in their understanding and measurement of „participation“. Many studies on the way in which the Internet influences civic partnership take participation to mean involvement in offline decision-making processes by established institutions. For instance do larger numbers of active Internet users vote, visit the doctor, or are they more committed at school?

These questions are interesting, no doubt. But blind spots may emerge if we fail to look beyond these aspects. Participation on the Internet exhibits a distinctly horizontal dimension, and hence takes place primarily among users in their own networks and communities. Is this form of participation irrelevant, just because it calls into question the established hierarchies?

Conducting a precise analysis of participation on the Internet is a daunting challenge: What if the familiar yardsticks for participation are simply inappropriate for the Net? What if participation on the Net is different to offline? How then can we recognise it? What if our understanding of participation – also due to new media – is changing? How can this new dynamism be academically „captured“? And what if this dynamism is so gradual or subtle that we quite simply fail to notice how established institutions are called into question?

Academia does not have to reinvent itself faced with the new media, but neither may it stand still. This analysis shows that a large number of innovative research projects are setting about analysing the Internet on an international stage and are investigating with substantial openness how our participation on the Net is changing. Although it is gathering pace, research in this area remains nascent, and is still searching for suitable yardsticks and instruments of analysis.