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Research on participation is currently characterized by a trend towards studying its "darker" sides. In this commentary, I make an argument for why we should keep studying good participation. In addition, I claim that the flipside of studying exceptional case studies of participation shouldn't be only focusing on dark participation, but on everyday, mundane forms of participation, that may happen in surprising contexts (such as non-proprietary platforms) and may take different shapes. To make these claims, I introduce a case study of "good participation" in news production processes, and explain why it may merit this distinction. I then use a three-pronged analogy to the cognate field of political participation to show what it can tell us about good—and everyday—participation in the news.

Research on participation is currently characterized by a trend towards studying its "darker" sides. In this commentary, I make an argument for why we should keep studying good participation. In addition, I claim that the flipside of studying exceptional case studies of participation shouldn't be only focusing on dark participation, but on everyday, mundane forms of participation, that may happen in surprising contexts (such as non-proprietary platforms) and may take different shapes. To make these claims, I introduce a case study of "good participation" in news production processes, and explain why it may merit this distinction. I then use a three-pronged analogy to the cognate field of political participation to show what it can tell us about good - and everyday - participation in the news.

Much current literature examines ways in which civic norms and practices are being enacted, developed and experimented with in the realm of new media. Yet an open question pertains to the role the new media environment plays in this process: Are changes in civic conceptions reliant on new media, or is it an arena in which such changes are enacted and enhanced? This essay addresses this question by contextualizing citizenship models that theorize the role of new media, as part of a broader paradigm of "alternative citizenship models." What threads together this paradigm is an argument about a change in what constitutes "good citizenship"; a change seen not as a decline from a previous standard, but as the manifestation of a new citizenship model. This article maps the landscape of alternative citizenship models and investigates the role of new media in reshaping citizenship.

Political talk enables citizens to form opinions and understand the significance of the political world. Yet young people in particular may find political talk intimidating or divisive, and may require alternative spaces to discuss politics. This article presents an ethnographic examination of political talk within the context of a face-to-face Harry Potter fan discussion group, as a case of a "third space" where shared popular culture interests serve as a starting point for political discussion. The analysis suggests three mechanisms explicating the process through which popular culture contexts can engender political talk: scaling up, broadening the political, and mobilization. Connections between popular culture and political communication are found to be particularly important for the political socialization of young people.

Adopting a comparative cross-platform approach, we examine youth political expression and conversation on social media, as prompted by popular culture. Tracking a common case study—the practice of building Donald Trump's border wall within the videogame Fortnite—across three social media platforms popular with youth (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram), we ask: How do popular culture artifacts prompt youth political expression, as well as cross-cutting political talk with those holding different political views, across social media platforms? A mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative content analysis of around 6,400 comments posted on relevant artifacts, illuminates youth popular culture as a shared symbolic resource that stimulates communication within and across political differences—although, as our findings show, it is often deployed in a disparaging manner. This cross-platform analysis, grounded in contemporary youth culture and sociopolitical dynamics, enables a deeper understanding of the interplay between popular culture, cross-cutting political talk, and the role that different social media platforms play in shaping these expressive practices.

By engaging with journalists in the networked media environment, audiences can play a role in shaping the epistemologies of journalism: how journalists know what they know, and communicate knowledge claims. While audiences have been offered opportunities to engage in news-production processes, ongoing reciprocal relationships between journalists and audiences online are rare. This study shows how sustained reciprocity takes place in a large-scale WhatsApp group opened by an Israeli journalist/blogger for her audience. Based on an analysis of group conversations, blog posts, and interviews, we demonstrate how a continuous conversation between the journalist and her loyal audience members allows the co-construction of journalistic knowledge across the news-production process. The online space that affords ongoing reciprocal exchanges is termed here a meso news-space, occurring between the private and public realms. This study contributes to understanding how sustained reciprocity can be accomplished and how it can promote shared benefits for journalists and community members.

One of the far-reaching implications of the current global COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden boost in use of digital media due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders. In times of routine, youth are often the first to adopt new technologies and platforms, to experiment with modes of production and practices of sharing, and often spend significant time and energy socializing online. Now such digital practices have become common among much wider demographics. Moreover, the move to online learning in schools and the spurt of innovative digital experiences offered has abruptly shifted the rhetoric of concern often associated with youth's so-called "screen time." The articles in this thematic issue—though written long before the COVID-19 pandemic—address many of the questions that now are significantly brought to the forefront. What are the potentials and opportunities offered by youth digital participation for learning, for self-expression, for identity formation, and for social connection? How does digital participation shape civic and political life? And finally, especially when digital participation is so ever-present, what are barriers to youth participation online, and what are the challenges and risks it poses?

One of the far-reaching implications of the current global COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden boost in use of digital media due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders. In times of routine, youth are often the first to adopt new technologies and platforms, to experiment with modes of production and practices of sharing, and often spend significant time and energy socializing online. Now such digital practices have become common among much wider demographics. Moreover, the move to online learning in schools and the spurt of innovative digital experiences offered has abruptly shifted the rhetoric of concern often associated with youth's so-called "screen time." The articles in this thematic issue - though written long before the COVID-19 pandemic - address many of the questions that now are significantly brought to the forefront. What are the potentials and opportunities offered by youth digital participation for learning, for self-expression, for identity formation, and for social connection? How does digital participation shape civic and political life? And finally, especially when digital participation is so ever-present, what are barriers to youth participation online, and what are the challenges and risks it poses?

Social media are recognized as important outlets for youth political expression, yet the affordances of different platforms may shape the forms and styles of expression that young people deploy. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the ways social media affordances shape youth voice, this article examines young people's political expression on the popular app musical.ly in the context of the 2016 US presidential election. Employing quantitative and qualitative content analysis on 1651 youth-created videos, we examine how young people use platform affordances, political hashtags, and memetic dimensions to convey a range of expressive political practices. In particular, through the analysis of content, form, and stance, our research illuminates how social media afford collective political expression for youth, by allowing them to deliberately connect to an assumed like-minded audience with similar beliefs through the use of shared symbolic resources.

The rise of networked media has brought new opportunities and challenges for individuals' engagement with politics. Some scholars propose that norms around "good citizenship" are evolving as well. Yet, little attention has been paid to how those debates play out in everyday cultural understandings. Drawing on the case of Kony2012, a highly visible social change campaign, we illustrate how perceptions of good citizenship can be understood as a contest between frames, one conducted not only by elites but also by individuals as they create and spread user-generated content. Using the theoretical lens of the frame contest, we contrast the hopeful image of the "networked citizen," presented in the Kony2012 campaign, with counter-frames of "slacktivism," presented in memes circulated in response to the campaign and its supporters. We posit the frame contest as a mechanism through which to understand how conceptions of good citizenship may change over time.

Drawing on 40 life-stories of Jewish-Israeli television viewers collected over the years 2004—6, this article makes three claims. First, it suggests that the formation of memory is tightly intertwined with television viewing, both at the individual level and the collective levels of the family and the nation. It elaborates on a typology of television memories, differentiating between wallpaper memories, flashbulb memories, media events and close encounters. Second, it asserts that in Israel, the nation remains a major framework for apprehending collective memory. Nevertheless, fragmentation can be felt: immigration and ethnicity play a role, as does commercialization. Finally, it makes a methodological claim about the ways collective memory can best be studied. Examining the reception of audiences, in addition to the common focus on memory texts, reveals that even with commercialized, fragmentized television, Jewish-Israeli viewers share a strong sense of common memories and a collective past.

Though news representations of protest have been studied extensively, little is known about how media audiences critique such representations. Focusing on TikTok as a space for media criticism, this article examines how users employ the app to respond to representations of protest in mainstream news media. Content collected in the spring of 2021 illuminated two very distinct foci of discussion about news representations of protest: the Black Lives Matter movement and the Capitol riot. Our qualitative content analysis of TikTok videos and their related comments demonstrates how users employed TikTok's creative affordances to dissect specific news representations, critique the media apparatus, and expand news narratives. These findings shed light on the complex role of TikTok as a platform for media criticism—one that can be used for both democratic and non-democratic ends.