Online democratic participation during COVID-19

Abstract

In terms of the inclusivity of democracy, both the opportunities and risks of using digital media have been highlighted in the literature. Empirical research into the use of digital media and the inclusivity of citizen participation, however, is limited. More specifically, we have a limited understand of the relation between the ‘richness’ of digital media and the inclusivity of citizen engagement The introduction of digital participation by governments during the COVID-19 pandemic presents a highly interesting situation for studying the relation between digital participation and the inclusivity of citizen engagement. This paper presents an assessment of five cases in the Netherlands to explore to what extent the media richness of digital participation affects the inclusivity of citizen engagement. Our findings present few indications for the exclusion of citizens and, in contrast, highlight the participation of more citizens when access was facilitated through digital media. The overall picture that emerges is that especially lean digital tools, webinars, enhance inclusivity in terms of access but only richer tools, interactive platforms, also facilitate participation as interaction with citizens. To our surprise, we found that hybrid forms of participation fall short in providing opportunities for inclusive interaction. We end the paper by recommending governments to realize both broad and in-depth inclusive democracy by sequential use of lean media – webinars – to boost the access to participation and rich media – platforms and offline meetings – for interactions with citizens.