CHAPTER 3
Researching online participation and public engagement in the new media environment
This chapter is conceived as a ‘bridge’ between the two previous chapters, Chapters 1 and 2, aimed at presenting the theoretical background of this research, and Chapter 4 which follows after and which introduces the particular methodology used in this study. Chapter 3 analyses in its first section how the use of different theoretical and methodological approaches has brought previous research to different, and even sometimes divergent, conclusions about the effects of traditional and new media consumption on citizen participation and engagement. In order to overcome this shortcoming, Section 2 presents practice theory and different approaches to Internet use as the core concepts on which this research will draw to structure its particular methodological approach on the concept of online participation. To conclude, Section 3 will show how previous research has approached the concepts of political participation and civic engagement, this being the basis of the typology of public engagement that will be presented subsequently in Chapter 4.
3.1. Media effects and political participation
The nature of the effects that new communication technologies have on public engagement, participation and life in democracy is still one of the big unanswered questions in media and communications research. Perhaps because the new media environment is something not yet established, still under construction (Press &
Williams, 2010), but also because there does not yet exist a general agreement on
a central issue such as the correlation between news media use and political behaviour. The different positions on this issue have been caricaturised by Kim and Kim (2012) as a "jungle of theories". Consequently, new communication technologies have added to a scenario that was already uncertain before they became widespread, inspiring a high number of both pessimistic and optimistic theories about their effect on citizens, news media and democratic practice.
With regard to ‘old’ or ‘traditional’ media, different theories have tried to explain the effects of media consumption on political participation and public or civic engagement. To summarise , a first group of theories, known as ‘media malaise’ (or
‘video malaise’, due to their special focus on the effects of television) which argue that mass media consumption, due to the content and format of the information they provide, results in increased political cynicism and apathy, contributing to civic disengagement and ignorance of public affairs (Bourdieu, 1998; Cappella &
Jamieson, 1997; Sartori, 1998). According to these theories, when mass media inform about politics, journalists tend to incorporate a bigger sensationalist component, focusing on scandals, polemics or personal issues (Ornebring, 2003), or presenting the political campaign as a game or competition, with the objective of making it more interesting for the audience (Postman, 1993) Witelbols, 2004).
Political issues or ideological debates are not usual in the media market as television coverage tends to personalise, focusing only on political leaders (Mcallister, 2007), changing the way in which political campaigns developed before the broadcast era (Meyer, 2002). Accordingly, citizens’ inputs about politics or the public world tend to be negative or focused on the personalities of political leaders. The effect on citizens is then disengagement from the political field and an increase in political distrust (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997).
On the other hand, ‘cognitive mobilization’ theories argue that the combination of an increased amount of political information provided by modern media and higher levels of education in western democracies, meaning a more prepared electorate, may have a good effect on democracy (Dalton, 1996; Inglehart, 1990).
For example, informed citizens in the United States, according to Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996), tend to participate more in politics than uninformed citizens, being
also more likely to express their own political positions and demonstrate a better knowledge about the candidates. Furthermore, Newton (Newton, 1999)found that attention to media (press and television news) is related to positive indicators of civic engagement in the United Kingdom. According to Van Zoonen (2005), the pessimism of ‘media malaise’ theories is due to an idealization of a past that never existed, but also a lack of consideration about the recent developments in late modern societies, that changed the ways in which citizens enter in relation with media and politics (Inglehart, 1990; Van Zoonen, 2005). Finally, a new perspective regarding this issue is the one provided by Pippa Norris (2000) and her theory of the ‘virtuous circle’. According to Norris, mass media consumption does not have the bad effects that ‘media malaise’ theories claim. In her study, she argues that attention to news media does not contribute to citizens’ apathy or disengagement.
Moreover, attention to news acts as a ‘virtuous circle’: “the most politically knowledgeable, trusting, and participatory are most likely to tune in to public affairs coverage. And those most attentive to coverage of public affairs become more engaged in civic life” (Norris, 2000, p. 317).
With regard to the effects of new communication technologies on public engagement, some authors have argued that these technologies will create a new online community, or public sphere, that will lower the formerly high costs of collective action, empowering citizens' political skills and social capital (Delli Carpini, 2000; Min, 2007; Rheingold, 2002). Moreover, others have argued for the potential benefits of the Internet as a tool that will offer easy access to political information and direct connections between citizens and their representatives, increasing agency, engagement and participation (Esser & de Vreese, 2007), following the 'mobilization effects' tradition. With regard to the effects of new communication technologies on media, some authors predicted the imminent demise of 'old' media (Nerone, 2009), or the uncertain future of journalists (Deuze, 2006) in a new scenario dominated by 'citizen journalism' (Gillmor, 2004) and active audiences that produce and share political content without needing traditional media anymore (Rosen, 2006).
However, some other authors have argued against these claims about the Internet's positive effects on society, claiming that new technologies imply risks of social isolation and addiction (Kraut et al., 1998; Nie, 2001). Mobilization effects are also denied by those that claim that the total number of citizens participating and using the Internet for political aims is still low (Hindman, 2009; L. Rainie &
Smith, 2012). Moreover, earlier work tended to show that those participating online were already politically active offline, in what are known as 'normalization' theses (Best & Krueger, 2005; Jensen, 2006; Norris, 2001). Consequently, some studies have pointed out that the mobilization effect is more likely to happen among the youngest sectors of the population who, traditionally, have higher levels of disengagement from traditional forms of political participation, and are more willing to look for what they cannot find offline in the online world (M. J. Jensen, Danziger, & Venkatesh, 2007). Finally, some authors, such as Keen (2007), have argued against the narrative of online participation, in which audience and author become one, losing the value of expertise and knowledge in favour of amateur and non-‐professional content. Despite these alarms about an overwhelming and increasingly participative and politically active audience, recent studies have pointed out that the interest of the audience in participating in media content might still be limited (Bergström, 2008; Heise et al., 2013; Larsson, 2011).
Reviewing the previous literature on the subject, two theoretical issues can be identified that this research needs to take into consideration, in order to conceptualise its structure and map the different methodological positions around the object of research. First of all, it needs to consider the question of how to carry out research into the effects of the Internet, the new media environment being an arena where users can perform an almost infinite number of different kinds of activities. Secondly, it needs to study the issue of what should be considered as political participation, or what the conditions are in order to be considered an active citizen, developing a typology of different forms for what I am going to call
‘public engagement’. These two different issues will be analysed in the next two sections of this chapter, aimed at reflecting on different theoretical and methodological approaches, before embarking in the next chapter on a presentation of the particular methodological approach followed by this research.
3.2. Internet effects and participatory practices
Concerning the issue of how Internet activities are researched with regard to their connection and effects on political participation, Hirzalla, Van Zoonen and Ridder (2010)have made some interesting points about how an understanding of Internet use can lead to different research conclusions. They argue that mobilization theses (which, as has been seen, are optimistic with regard to the effects of Internet use on political participation) are normally made from online manifestations in moment specific cases, or case studies, that do not represent the behaviour of ordinary citizens. (as, for example, during the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ or the Spanish 11-‐M ‘indignados’). On the other hand, normalization theses (that tend to be more pessimistic) are built from general Internet use patterns, and do not differentiate between different kinds of Internet use, getting their conclusions from definitions of user online behaviour that are too broad, mixing in their definitions of online activities that barely have anything in common.
Consequently, according to these authors, mobilization studies tend to show the political potential of the Internet and new communication technologies. Using qualitative research, these studies tend to highlight how easily the Internet can facilitate activities aimed at political purposes, or how it can be used as a political space, or public sphere, where citizens can organise themselves for political participation or exchange different opinions or points of view about public issues.
On the other hand, normalization theories, normally based on survey studies or other quantitative methodologies, tend to claim that those people who are already active and engaged are those who are primarily exploiting the Internet's political potential. There are therefore no positive effects on the number of people who participate, because the same inequalities that characterise offline participation are reproduced, and perhaps even increased, in online participation (inequalities regarding material, social and political resources between socio-‐demographical groups).
Following this idea of differentiating Internet use, some authors (Pasek, More, &
Romer, 2009; Zhao, 2006) argue that none of the previously introduced optimistic
or pessimistic scenarios have happened: the Internet might have some positive effects on citizens' engagement, but its positive or negative effects predominantly depend on the specific forms of Internet use that citizens are performing online.
Internet use studies can be focused on specific uses of the Internet, such as online news (Nielsen, 2011) or social media in relation to mobilization for demonstrations (Enjolras, Steen-‐Johnsen, & Wollebaek, 2012), but can also be focused on the different effects of Internet use according to the level of users’
activity: passive forms such as reading political news or reading users' comments, contrasted with active forms of Internet use such as using social networks for political purposes or blogging (de Zuniga, Copeland, & Bimber, 2013; Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömback, & Nord, 2011; Gil De Zuniga, Puig-‐I-‐Abril, & Rojas, 2009;
Kruikemeier, van Noort, Vliegenthart, & de Vreese, 2013). According to this position, what citizens are doing online has become too diverse, including and affecting almost every aspect of the offline world, for research to still consider that something such as 'general' Internet effects can be researched. Furthermore, the media environment is still trying to adapt itself to new communication technologies, that rather than being something stable are an area of constant innovation, complicating the processes through which we can research how citizens make sense of them and how they use these new tools in their lives in democracy and their connection with news media (Williams and Delli Carpini, 2011; Press and Williams, 2010).
Continuing this previous argumentation, Internet use can be understood as a number of integrative and pre-‐existent everyday practices that involve the use of new communication technologies, such as shopping, home banking, entertaining, maintaining social networks or getting the news. This list of everyday practices linked with ICTs might be endless and illustrates how deeply these new technologies are embedded in modern life, changing the nature of pre-‐existent practices and the ways in which citizens behave in their daily lives. Christensen and Ropke (2010) cite the example of the practice of 'maintaining social networks' and how ICTs, especially among young people, have changed the ways in which they establish their peer-‐group interactions, without differentiating between mediated and non-‐mediated kinds of interactions. Despite the previous existence
of this practice, new communication technologies have strongly modified it, to the point where it would be difficult to imagine a world in which we need to communicate with our family, friends or with job colleagues without cell phones and computers.
Nick Couldry proposes understanding media as a group of practices that have in common their relation to media (media as practice), decentring media studies from the study of the text or the institutions that produce it, in order to better answer a question highly relevant for the author: 'What are people doing that is related to media?' (Couldry, 2012, p. 35). According to some authors "decentring the text makes it possible to analyse people's media activity in its own terms"
(Ardevol, Roig, San Cornelio, Pagès, & Alsina, 2010) opening up the path to a new series of media and communication studies more focused on citizens and their use of media, closely related with their everyday contexts (Bird, 2010). Following Couldry, a practice is defined both by regularity of action and by its social component, that is, 'action oriented to others', being an observable routine activity, with an automatic and unconscious character (Couldry, 2010a, 2012). Couldry also argues that in the context of the digital revolution, the main research question can be transformed into: 'What types of things do people say (think, believe) in relation to media?': "(...) in order to establish what are the new principles by which practices related to media are demarcated, we cannot be guided simply by our instinct as media or social researchers. We must look closely at what people are doing, saying and thinking in relation to media" (Couldry, 2012, p. 40). Practice theory can help us to separate and better understand the different forms of Internet use performed by citizens. It aids us also to put the focus on users' discourses, motivations and attitudes, towards these practices; something especially interesting as this research is focused on participatory practices: a series of practices that imply a higher level of citizens' activity and consciousness when they take part in it.
Focusing on media-‐related practices that imply participation (media participatory practices), fan culture studies were some of the first to show how citizens have become producers of new media texts, transgressing former distinctions between
media texts, producers and passive audiences (Bird, 2003; Jenkins, 2006a). The development of new communication technologies created new opportunities for fan culture: people with common interests are more likely to meet online and, through collaboration, create their own online spaces and content related to their specific fan cultures.
Furthermore, creating and sharing, spreading the message, have become common practices with the social web (Jenkins, Ford & Green, 2013). Online media participatory practices carried out by fans could therefore represent "a fruitful way to examine everyday life in a media world in which media texts, and discourse about texts, suffuse not only moments of actual media consumption but also people's world views in a broad sense" (Bird, 2010). Some authors have brought this argument to the point of claiming that fan culture online media participatory practices will be adopted in the near future by a majority of citizens in their involvement with politics and public issues (Dahlgren, 2005; Henry Jenkins, 2003).
Despite the attraction of such optimistic positions, more research is needed in order to better understand how normal or ordinary citizens use online media participatory practices and what their motivations are for participating (or not), instead of expanding and generalizing conclusions from those groups of citizens that show higher participatory intensities. As Bird has pointed out: "I am not convinced that we all are (or could be) such active media practitioners" (Bird, 2010, p. 91). Instead, the scenario in which to consider citizens' online media participation, related to politics or public issues, is more likely to be as Hujanen and Pietikäinen define it: "an emerging and transforming continuum of possibilities which are taken up by some and bypassed by others, and which have different kinds of meanings for different people at different moments" (Hujanen &
Pietikäinen, 2004, p. 399).
There is a need then to contribute to the better understanding of citizens' attitudes and motivations towards online media participation, an area of research that some authors have described as under-‐researched (Merel Borger et al., 2013; Carpentier, 2009), but with a special importance, as the significance of civic online participation and how it will affect the "ever-‐evolving" state of journalism and life
in democracy is still unknown (Dahlgren, 2013). Instead of trying to grasp the whole array of participatory practices that can be carried out online, attention will be focused on those practices that can be performed on news media websites, sometimes described under the name of 'participatory journalism' (commenting on news or journalists' blogs, sending user-‐generated content etc..) (Singer et al., 2011). Additionally, those practices performed on social networks that involve news media content, such as sharing news links or commenting on them with friends or acquaintances will also be considered. Comparing citizens’ behaviours and discourses in these two different online environments could lead to interesting results, with regard to how news media are taking up or not, the participatory potential of the new media environment, attracting citizens to or disengaging them from their websites or other online environments where news media are present.
In the conclusions of one of his early studies of participatory journalism, Neil Thurman (2008) pointed out that the most popular location for debate on the BBC News website, ‘Have Your Say’, was attracting contributions of around 0.05% of the site's daily visitors. Thurman’s reflection finished by supporting further work on how audiences were using tools for participatory journalism offered on media websites, and also further research on more general attitudes of citizens and their motivations towards online media participation. Thurman’s claim has remained mostly unanswered by the high number of scholars who have researched participatory journalism as they have been more focused on analysing the participatory formats adopted by media or professional journalists’ attitudes towards user participation (Borger et al., 2013). However, more recently a number of authors have argued in favour of a return to more audience-‐focused media studies, as opposed to the dominant research that views online audiences as intrinsically participative (Carpentier, 2009; Jenkins & Carpentier, 2013).
In their extensive review of the literature on participatory journalism, Borger et al.
(2013) showed that the audience's point of view, the ‘social dimension’ of journalism, has been mostly disregarded in media studies, except for some research on audiences’ interpretations of media texts (Wahl-‐Jorgensen &
Hanitzsch, 2009). In new media environment-‐based studies, the perspectives, attitudes and motivations of those that should contribute or participate (the ordinary citizens) are an undeveloped field of research, with a general trend that assumes that citizens are always willing to participate. However, when research has been conducted, researchers have discovered that “news users act differently than scholars hoped” (Borger et al., 2013, p. 128), being mostly uninterested in participating in news media websites and, when they do participate, they mostly
Hanitzsch, 2009). In new media environment-‐based studies, the perspectives, attitudes and motivations of those that should contribute or participate (the ordinary citizens) are an undeveloped field of research, with a general trend that assumes that citizens are always willing to participate. However, when research has been conducted, researchers have discovered that “news users act differently than scholars hoped” (Borger et al., 2013, p. 128), being mostly uninterested in participating in news media websites and, when they do participate, they mostly