Part of Me Is Online: A Systematic Literature Review of Online Participation

Abstract

Online participation has found increasing attention in various research disciplines. Participatory potentials of new media are explored from a number of different perspectives, covering activities such as writing a political blog, participating in an online discussion board on health topics or remixing and sharing videos online. This article presents a systematic literature review of the current state-of-research on online participation. Drawing on four databases and a total of eight search combinations, it reviews some recent developments, main discourses as well as findings within this domain. We find that research on online participation is highly segregated into specific sub discourses that reflect disciplinary boundaries. Research on political participation and civic engagement on the Internet is by far the most prominent research stream. Other forms of participation include cultural, business, education and health participation. We derive salient implications and propositions for future research.

Keywords: Online Participation, Social Media, Internet, Literature Review