Ambivalent effects of public participation in the space of digital communications: the discursive field of contemporary studies

Abstract

The results of the analysis of the discursive field of contemporary scientific studies on the effects of public participation in digital communication spaces are presented. The process of increased digitalization of civic activism studied from the perspective of cyberoptimists and cyberpessimists. The key components of the contexts formed by researchers, defining the features of representation and correlation of such positions in the academic environment are highlighted. The negative effects of digital activism are seen in the increase of social disunity and citizen passivity, the crisis of democratic institutions and political participation. The positive effects are in many ways the opposite of negative and more extensive. Digital activism creates a cyberspace of action that facilitates the development of civic practices and values, as well as extends previous forms of civic interaction. The networking of actions in social media reduces the transaction costs of organizing civic action. Social media users who actively participate in online public actions have stronger intentions to offline participation, thus ensuring the transfer of civic engagement from the virtual to the real environment. Digital activism offers great opportunities for innovative actions based on social networks, which allow a greater impact on social change with less effort. The polarization of the scientific community, the fragmentation of the discursive field on the influence of digital communications on civic activism, and the predominance of subjective and ideologized approaches in the research outlined in the paper, constitute new challenges for social sciences at the current stage of development.