"Internet
and New forms of political participation" Conference
Lille
(France), March 28-29th, 2019
With the
support of the CERAPS (University of Lille), the CEDITEC (UPEC), the CEVIPOL
(Free University of Brussels) and the CReSPo (Saint-Louis-Brussels University)
Studies on
offline political participation have for a long time demonstrated a deep
participatory divide between those participating a lot – a minority – and a
vast majority of citizens taking part to very few political activities, and not
always according to "politician" considerations (Gaxie, 1978).
However,
according to the upholders of the paradigm of the "(new)
mobilization" (Hirzalla, van Zoonen and of Ridder, 2011), the lower costs
of participation, made possible by the use of the internet, would have favored
the inclusion of new participants, in particular stemming from social groups
which some structural constraints held away from the "established and
temporarily limited forms of participation" (Wojcik, 2011).
Field
works, in the United States but also in Europe, have also highlight the real
-but limited- effects of internet on the mobilization of new participants
(Boulianne, 2015; Christensen, 2011). According to them, not only the social
media - As YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr etc. - serve for political
activities, but the very use of internet would increase votes or political
participation (Lee and alii, 2013), so that even the time spent on
"surfing everywhere" could increase political activity (Wright, 2012;
Margetts, 2015; Vaccari and alii, 2015). Some put forward even that internet
skills could be the main resource to participate online, independently of any
political motivation (Krueger, 2002; Anduiza and alii, 2010; Borge and
Cardenal, 2011; Vicente and Novo, 2014).
Thus the
online activism would complete the offline activism, even if links between them
should still be elucidated. For some, online activism would open on new logics
of commitment, the logics of the "connective" action, different from
the traditional logics of the collective action (Bimber and alii, 2005; Bennett
and Segerberg, 2012), which would produce, as for the offline activism,
sub-models of e-participation (Cantijoch and Gibson, 2013) refracting a
plurality of links to politics, from the most distant to the most active ones
(Leonard, 2009; Christensen, 2011; Life,2014). Online activism would lead to
the emergence of new modes of action (Granjon, 2002a; Peretti and Micheletti,
2004; Greffet and Wojcik, 2008; Badouard, 2013; Théviot and Mabi, 2014;
Babeau, 2014; Halupka, 2014), and even to the emergence of new repertoires of
actions (Granjon, 2002b, Van Laer and alii, 2010).
For others,
some forms of hybridization of online and offline activism would appear
(Wright, 2015). Online activism could contribute in particular to the revitalization
of a set of former political practices, by opening them to new actors and to
new ideas (Riehm and alii, 2014; Puschmann and alii, 2017). It could also
subvert some of the traditional limits of the collective action (Margetts and
alii, 2009). It would produce especially forms of hybridization between online
and offline commitment, variable according to the modes of action and the
individuals (Bastos and alii, 2015; Lee and Chan, 2016).
These new
actors, engaged in new forms of action, would speak politics differenty. On
Internet and the social media, political commitment would indeed be expressed
in new manners, more personal, more "expressive" (Monnoyer-Smith,
2011), more creative, associated with specific figures and formats (Babeau,
2014; Benson, 2017). New manners to speak and to engage politically would
appear as much in the old rags of petitioning (Boure and Bousquet (2010, 2011);
Hagen and alii, 2016) as on new platforms such as YouTube (Van Zoonen and alii,
2010).
Finally,
these new political forms of participation -both new according to their authors
as to their modes and their contents- would be supposed, according to some
academics, to be also more efficient. Some studies demonstrated it in focusing
on specific public policy (Alathur, 2007; Navarria, 2010; Cotton, 2011;
Panagiotopoulos, 2010; Morva, 2016). H.Margetts theorizes it more generally
(Margetts, 2009). This is especially the main assertion of the
"cyber-enthusiasts" who put forward the democratising virtues of new technologies
(Lipset, 1960; Sola Pool, 1983) which question the centralized control of
communications and which are supposed to offer to each an equal possibility to
speak (Winner, 2014). An assertion that should have been attested by what has
been presented as the "e-revolutions" of the "Arab world"
(Lim, 2013; Howard and Hussain, 2013).
Nevertheless,
the conclusions of these works remain controversial. To the cyberenthusiasts of
the western democracies and to the partisans of the theory of the
"mobilization", oppose the upholders of the thesis of the
"normalization" or "reinforcement" (Margolis and Resnick,
2000), according to whom, for the main part, internet would change nothing to
the political participation, or those supporting the theory of the
"substitution" who deduce that the new technologies could feed in the
"clicktivism" or "slacktivism": a "soft" or
"lazy” activism (Shulman, 2009; Morozov, 2011) of individuals whose
political activity would express itself only through internet (online
petitions, Facebook groups, etc.) rather than bearing the costs and risks
linked to offline activism (travel, public exposure, police repression, etc.).
Many works,
focusing on different countries, media or modes of action, using different
methodological devices, agree on the fact that, for the main part, online
activities are done by already offline active citizens, so that Internet would
offer new opportunities to those already active rather than it would lead
previously passive citizens to mobilization. At bet, it might be noticed a
renewal in the youngest categories, but without any reduction of the social
differences (Bimber, 1999 and 2001; Norris, 2003; Schlozman and alii, 2010; Van
Laer, 2010; Dare and alii, 2013; Carlisle and Patton, 2013; Carman, 2014;
Neihouser, 2014; Best and Krueger, 2005; Boyadjian, 2016; Escher and Riehm,
2017).
Some even
assure that Internet would add a "digital divide" (Norris, 2001) to
the "social divide", not only for technical reasons, but also and
especially for cognitive reasons. Internet would aggravate the differences of
activity between the citizens as far as only the most educated and the most
interested in the politics would benefit from these new opportunities (Thomas
and Streib, 2003; Weber and alii, 2003; Van Laer, 2010; Lindner and Riehm,
2011). One would notice an hyper concentration of the discussions (Dormagen and
Boyadjian, 2016). One could speak of a "second-level digital divide” (Min,
2010). Especially as beyond differences in level of activity, the social and
cultural inequalities would be distributed from now on within the online
practices, in particular the online political practices (Cardon, 2010).
In the same
way, one has questioned the novelty of the collective-action repertoires
(Bellon, 2014), that of the changes of contents and formats (Himelboim and
alii, 2009; Dias da Silva, 2015) - by putting forward, on one hand, the
filiations with the former contents (Chartron and Rebillard, 2007), and, on the
other hand, the weakly deliberative character of the online exchanges (Mutz and
Wojcieszak, 2009; Poster, 1997) which look more like "flame wars"
(Dery, 1994) than discussions in an habermassian space (Rheingold, 1994) - and,
finally, the novelty of their
impacts. Beyond the questioning of the impact of the new media in the recent
movements of mobilization in the "Arab world" (Allal and Pierret,
2013; Contamin, 2016), some investigate their efficiency by comparing it in
particular to that of the "traditional" modes of action (Hooghe and
Marien, 2014; Escher and Riehm, 2017) or by underlining more globally the
incapacity of these modes of action to reach the expected results in the
"real" world (Shulman, 2005 and 2009; Coleman and Blumler, 2009).
These
findings incite the partisans of the theory of the substitution to deepen this
questioning. At first, they may question the political character of many of
these exchanges and these actions (Hoffman, on 2012). Then, they wonder if
internet would not divert the citizens of the real political actions for the
benefit of forms of participation via the social media which would have no real
political consequences and which would especially serve to increase the feeling
of utility and psychological comfort of those who perform them (Morozov, 2011;
Harlow and Guo, 2014; Schumann and Klein, 2015). We would sign online petitions
or we would be a member of political groups on Facebook rather than to
contribute in long-term political campaigns (Joyce, 2010). We would discuss
politics with our friends rather than get organized to influence directly the
public authorities (Schlozman and alii, 2010).
However,
between these three positions, the conclusions remain contradictory. When some
put forward the politicizing role of Facebook (Chan, 2016), others demonstrate
its role of "diversion" towards politics (Theocharis and Lowe, 2016).
When some underline that Internet would not have allowed a rebalancing of the
political participation between men and women (Friedman, 2005), others
highlight an equalizer effect (Sheppard, 2015). The difficulty in concluding is
doubtless partly bound to the fact that methods designed to study the offline
political participation are used to analyze the online participation. On the
contrary, one could suppose that the emergence, the multiplication and the
diversification of the forms of "political" participation - the term
itself would have to be discussed- online (Facebook, twitter, instagram,
YouTube, discussion forums, comments, websites of online petition, more
institutional platforms, ...), as the provision of new large big data for
research can be used to reframe these traditional questions, using new data and
innovative methodological devices.
This
conference is precisely thought around this "bet". It aims at
gathering field works which, from new data and/or from new methods, re-question
this now traditional issue of the effects of the new technologies on the
political participation, according to various angles:
- that of the participants, with in particular the question of the links between " participatory divide" and "digital divide"
- that of the modes of actions, with in particular the question of the links between online and offline actions
- that of the contents, focusing in particular on the possible renewal of the forms and formats of political enunciation
- that of impacts, with in particular the question of the forms of impact and of the articulation with the impact of other forms of political participation.
Interdisciplinary
works will be particularly welcome as well as studies which concern varied
national or international grounds. The ethical and legal dimension of this type
of studies, which suppose to work on personal data sometimes partly without
knowing those who produce them, will also be one of the stakes of this
conference.
The
proposals have to contain a title and a summary of maximum 1 000 words (without
bibliography) which specify the question of research, describe the methods and
the data and give an indication of the results. They must be sent by December
31st, 2018 on the following link.
Agreement
of the scientific committee on the admissibility of the contribution: January
15th, 2019.
The authors
of the accepted proposals will have to submit their articles before the date of
the conference in order to facilitate the later publications.
Deadline to
send the papers (50000 sign maximum, including bibliography): March 15th, 2019.
The
speaking languages will be French and English. If needed, a system of
interpreting will be set up (from French towards English).
Possible
support, subject to conditions, for travel and accommodation costs. Contact :
Jean-Gabriel Contamin: jean-gabriel.contamin@univ-lille.fr
Deadlines:
Deadline
for proposals submission : December 31st, 2018
Answer:
January 15th, 2019
Sending of
communications: March 15th, 2019
Conference:
March 28th and 29th, 2019
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