Reviving this thread to say: @hugi – could you please please launch your search strings script? Thank you!
Sure thing! What I need is a research scope. Basically, a few paragraphs defining what you are looking for.
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Of course! Something like this:
As part of INTERFACED WP2, our team is tasked with ethnographically analyzing the lived experiences of citizens engaging in non-electoral political participation since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. A central component of this work involves identifying and mapping the platforms— “participation interfaces”—through which citizens deliberate, mobilize, advocate, and contest political realities outside of formal electoral systems. The interfaces we hope to identify through search strings may include (but are not limited to) digital petition sites, civic tech tools, decentralized organizing platforms, protest-mapping technologies, or thematic online communities. It is our hope that the search strings will systematically scan, filter, and categorize relevant participation environments (“interfaces”) in countries under study.
In addition to identifying these interfaces/platforms, we are engaged in a parallel effort to identify and reach out to local actors embedded within these sociopolitical ecosystems—people who will become our “Fellows” (see thread on the call for Fellows). These are individuals who are either already acting as conduits between communities and institutions or who have the capacity to serve as such through because they have the social capital and trust-based relationships with the communities we aim to reach. The search string protocol will hopefully reveal both participation “hubs” and key actors that can be potentially invited as collaborators: community organizers, citizen researchers, platform moderators, notably vocal contributors, civic tech developers, grassroots coordinators.
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Great! What about some limitations? What are you not interested in?
Is the geographic scope limited?
Are commercial offerings that have met this need also interesting, or out of scope? For example communities with pay-to-access models.
Any other boundaries I should be aware of?
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Geographically – limited to the 9 countries under study in the project: Austria, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, Tunisia, and the United Kingdom
That’s a great question about pay-to-access models. Are you thinking of online communities/ subscription-based platforms? I would like to know what @danmercea thinks of that – but can you say more of the kinds of communities / examples of commercial offerings you have in mind?
Yes. Since you particularly mention “thematic online communities”, this would be a big one. Platforms like Mighty Networks (here is one on the theme of disability advocacy leadership), but also Patreons that give access to exclusive Discord servers.
On an extreme side of the spectrum, Andrew Tate radicalizes young men that he charges $49.99 per month for his Discord server or $7,979 (yes, you read that right) to access his “War Room”.
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wow thank you for sharing this, crazy but interesting at the same time!
Sounds like we shouldn’t exclude it then. Let’s see what comes up! Will get back here within a week or so when I’ve compiled results.
Great thread and tricky question. On the one hand, commercial platforms are exclusionary by nature. So, it seems reasonable to assume that socio-economically disadvantaged groups are walled out by the access fees. On the other, it is also reasonable to expect that some of those who have disengaged from other forms of participation have migrated to some of these alternatives spaces that provide an outlet for interests and issues outside of the political mainstream (in many cases). So, I would say, if there is a way for us to tap into those alternative spaces, it might be worth doing it, But we should be clearheaded about it and calibrate our expectations.
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