Social media and new forms for civic participation

For about 20 years, ever since the early 1990s, the Internet’s potential to change how we think and act about politics has been a reoccurring theme in social science research. Already the Internet’s early introduction into Western societies was accompanied by thought-provoking suggestions regarding its political and civic potential. It was perceived to have the power to substantiate the idea of an electronic direct democracy (Hague and Loader, 1999; Kitchin, 1998), to change our idea of what the public sphere is (Poster, 1995), to facilitate stronger contacts between citizens and local government (Tsagarousianou et al., 1998) and to stimulate new versions of a more active citizenship (Coleman, 2001), to mention a few of the many opportunities that were identified. The fact that these and similar propositions regarding the new information and communication technology’s (ICT) abilities to reshape politics and civic action also became subjects of critical analyses, that called for a less celebratory treatment of the new medium (cf. Margolis and Resnick, 2000; Wilhelm, 2000), did not stop researchers from ascribing the new medium great potential for civic and political change. The Internet was introduced into the Western world at a time when there was a great sense of overall social and cultural change. These changes were often referred to as a transformation from modernity to a state of late modernity (cf. Beck, 1992 [1986]; Giddens, 1990, 1991; Thompson, 1995). The notion of late modernity holds a wide variety of social and cultural transformations in it. It includes, for instance, changing levels of trust in the expert systems of modernity (Giddens, 1991) and an increasing sense of global risks (Beck, 1992 [1986]), such as environmental hazards. The potential 656338 NMS0010.1177/1461444816656338Review Essaynew media & societyReview Essay research-article2016