Participation and communication in the time of social Media: a chimera or an opportunity

Communication and participation immediately present themselves as a combination capable of developing mutual symbiosis and reinforcement. However, it would be superficial to deduce that the ease of communicating through social media has solved the problem of participation. Instead, it is necessary to start from the awareness of the problems of this binomial in order to attempt to follow virtuous paths and avoid blind alleys. The paper presents the research/action carried out in several civic participation experiences, both real and virtual, promoted by NGOs and the local public administrations of several Italian cities (Verona, Messina, Bolzano, and Rome). The results highlight the opportunities and problems of participation through social media. Specifically, those opportunities are: (1) the possibility of involving a larger number of people who could not participate without social media; (2) the sharing not only of the results of the participation but also the processes behind the participation allows for an active protagonism of the people; and (3) the care of the real and virtual places of participation facilitates the active involvement of people. On the other hand, the problems are: (1) the lack of awareness of online media space generates a redundancy in communication; (2) the difficulty of emerging in the online public media space causes disaffection and disinterest; and (3) the scarce capability to be producers of online media content generates a fake participation.