The emergence of new media and its affordances have
generated an increasing interest not only in resurgence of centralized
structures and surveillance, but also in their participatory potential. Such
interest is, in fact, not historically distinctive; each time the society is
introduced to a new medium of communication, its potential of being used for
the broader social good or harm becomes a matter of debate. Then again, where
the rise of authoritarianism in the world today is considered, enabling more
citizen participation in social and political debate is regarded as a
progressive contribution of new media in general.
In Turkey’s context, participation is generally associated
with practices that are limited to efforts to sustain electoral democracy and
politics. However, looking at the increasing international scholarly calls for
contribution on participation issue by numerous journals and books, one can see
the diversity in the ways in which participation as a concept is understood as
a very broad category, which may imply “interaction”, “engagement” or merely a
social, political or cultural “joining”. For instance, Nico Carpentier (2013)
defines participation in a much broader way than it is used in the academic
lexicon of Turkey, but also with a narrower political signification than many
others assume since he considers participation as an equalization of power
relations in decisionmaking processes. Communication as a “practice” and media
as an “institution” play a crucial role in strengthening or changing social
power relations in such processes. The definition of participation by Henry
Jenkins (2013), on the other hand, is closer to the broader meaning when he
refers to "participatory cultures" of youth, including fan clubs,
blogs, popular videos, online activism, etc.
