Active spectating in the digital public sphere: A qualitative exploration

This article addresses a critical yet underexplored aspect of online political participation: spectating. Often pejoratively dubbed “lurking” (Edelmann, 2015; Hong et al., 2023; Kushner, 2016), spectating encompasses silent, receptive online behaviours involved in seeking and interpreting information. Despite the rich landscape of online political behaviour, previous research has predominantly focused on expressive activities, often overlooking the nuanced role of the far more common activities involved in spectating (Ruess et al., 2023; Theocharis et al., 2021). This oversight has led to a limited understanding of how receptive activities may contribute to political discourse and democratic engagement, prompting calls for research exploring their potential relevance (Crawford, 2011; Holst & Moe, 2021; Jensen & Schwartz, 2021).

Through an interpretive, user-centred approach, I seek to reframe spectating as a potentially active and significant form of political participation. The research is grounded in data from seven mini focus groups with young adults, aged 18–25, in Norway. The primary research aim is to explore how participants portray spectating as political participation. This is investigated through two sub-questions: 1) How do participants perceive and articulate the appropriateness and significance of spectating as political participation? 2) What normatively desirable political behaviours are involved in spectating?

I begin by problematising the bias toward expression over silence within research on online political participation, particularly in light of current conditions of information abundance (Cotter & Thorson, 2022; Ercan et al., 2019). Subsequently, I outline theoretical notions underpinning the study, including positive interpretations of political spectating (Felicetti, 2022; Green, 2010) and a distributed approach to deliberative engagement (Goodin, 2003; Mansbridge et al., 2012; Moe, 2020, 2023). This is followed by a description of the study methodology and presentation of the findings. The findings demonstrate the productive role spectating can play in the distribution and uptake of knowledge, expertise, and ideas across the citizenry, potentially promoting informed opinion formation and further engagement. Based on these findings, I introduce the concept of active spectating, which involves participatory approaches to seeking, viewing, and interpreting political content on social media that align with the expectations that citizens hold for themselves and others. In the final section, I consider the findings in the context of previous literature and theory, emphasising how active spectating meaningfully contributes to a systemic understanding of deliberative democracy.

Political participation, described as “the elixir of life for democracy” (van Deth, 2014: 350), is of perpetual interest to social scientists. However, defining what “counts” as participation is a topic of ongoing debate (Kim & Hoewe, 2023; Ruess et al., 2023). While scholars generally agree that political participation involves political activity voluntarily undertaken by citizens (Theocharis & van Deth, 2017; van Deth, 2014), there is disagreement regarding how active or overtly political such activity must be to qualify as genuine participation – particularly within the online realm (Dennis, 2019; Kim & Hoewe, 2023; Ruess et al., 2023).

Discussions about political participation often evoke the notion of voice as a metaphor for civic empowerment (Barber, 2003; Green, 2010). Political expression is, therefore, often depicted as a uniformly positive political act, something society inevitably benefits from increasing (James & Lee, 2017; Sakariassen & Meijer, 2021). Spectating, characterised by a distinct lack of voice, is typically excluded from political participation, serving as a counterpart against which genuine acts of participation are compared and defined (Felicetti, 2022). The notion of citizen-as-spectator is often invoked as the antithesis of “good citizenship”, depicting a passive, disinterested, and alienated citizenry (Ackerman & Fishkin, 2004). This outlook is particularly influential today, as broad support for participatory and deliberative democratic models – expecting active and frequent citizen engagement – has displaced the previously dominant minimalistic models, which demanded comparatively little from citizens.

This perspective also permeates discourse on political behaviour on social media. Research has primarily emphasised visible, expressive activities like content creation and sharing (Boulianne & Theocharis, 2020; James & Lee, 2017; Ruess et al., 2023). Silent, receptive modes of social media use are often overlooked, characterised as passive, a “lack of” participation, or even as posing a threat to online communities (Edelmann, 2015; Kushner, 2016; Sakariassen & Meijer, 2021). Indeed, the most common moniker for silent usage, lurking, is borrowed from the offline verb meaning “to lie in wait in a place of concealment especially for an evil purpose” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.), clearly denoting an antisocial and unwelcome presence.

However, so-called lurking is and always has been the most prevalent mode of Internet usage (Hong et al., 2023; Nielsen, 2006). Moreover, although distinctions are often made between “lurkers” and more visible participants, virtually all users – active contributors included – read, view, and reflect on content published by others. Concerning political topics specifically, studies show that only a minority of citizens regularly contribute political content, while a far larger number encounter such posts and comments in their newsfeeds (Moe et al., 2019; Newman et al., 2023; Sakariassen & Meijer, 2021).

The narrow focus on voice-as-participation, coupled with the neglect of silent behaviours, has shaped expectations of good citizenship that are disconnected from the everyday experiences of the average citizen. This is true offline as well as online, since, as Green (2010: 4) has pointed out, in general, apart from casting the occasional vote, most citizens engage with “the political” primarily by watching and listening to others who are taking action, rather than speaking up themselves. The ranking of speech above silence becomes increasingly dubious within current conditions of “communicative plenty” (Ercan et al., 2019), where many citizens feel overwhelmed and fatigued by the amount of information they encounter in their daily lives (Cotter & Thorson, 2022). The prevalence of “dark participation” (Quandt, 2018) online, such as spreading disinformation and so-called trolling, provides further challenges to the positioning of political expression as inherently positive.

Online political expression is often assumed to hold particular significance for younger cohorts, who are avid users of digital technologies and less inclined to engage in conventional political participation activities, such as joining a political party or voting (Bennett, 2008; Boulianne & Theocharis, 2020). However, empirical research has complicated this narrative. Even within younger generations, most users rarely or never contribute political content online (Moe et al., 2019; Sakariassen & Meijer, 2021). Moreover, young people’s perceptions of online political talk are often nuanced and critical (Gagrčin, 2023; Sveningsson, 2014; Thorson et al., 2014). And, most young people consider other political activities, such as voting, developing opinions, and aiding those less fortunate, as more important for good citizenship than online expression (Lane, 2020; Oser et al., 2023).

Recent research indicates that navigating the often overwhelming online “information cacophony” (Cotter & Thorson, 2022) has produced new norms for good citizenship among users in digital spaces, which emphasise silent, receptive behaviours over speaking up. Gagrčin and colleagues (2022) found that young Germans endorse “discursive citizenship norms”, expecting citizens to practice “individual information care” by intentionally selecting credible sources and critically evaluating information, and “discourse care” by thoughtfully considering their contributions and avoiding polluting the discourse with misleading or otherwise unhelpful information. These findings align with broader trends that highlight algorithmic awareness and conscientious curation as increasingly essential civic skills (Gran et al., 2021; Greene et al., 2022). This research underscores the importance of developing an understanding of the silent political behaviours encompassed in spectating.

Observing the marked disparity between dominant normative democratic theories, which expect citizens to regularly participate in political processes and discussions, and empirical reality, some scholars have questioned the relevance of such expectations for contemporary societies (Christiano, 2015; Holst & Moe, 2021; Moe, 2023). Researchers have delineated “alternative” models of citizenship that align more closely with the attitudes and behaviours of contemporary citizens (see Kligler-Vilenchik, 2017) and account for the often-overlooked majority who fall somewhere between “disengaged” and “activist” (Amnå & Ekman, 2014; Lieberkind & Bruun, 2021; Norris, 1999; Schudson, 1998).

Schudson (1998), for instance, introduced the “monitorial citizen”, who makes a rational choice to not actively engage in politics, but nonetheless maintains a watchful eye on political processes from a distance. In a similar vein, Amnå and Ekman (2014) proposed “standby citizens” to describe the majority of Swedish youth who, though generally passive, are politically interested and prepared to become active as situations demand – for instance, if a cause they care about enters the agenda (Manning, 2013). Observing similar trends, Lieberkind and Bruun (2021: 37) described young Scandinavians as “reserved citizens” who are “neither simply active nor simply passive” but rather “actively passive”.

This broadening of the purview of good citizenship takes into account the inescapable reality that “people have varying resources, time, and energy to spend on public issues, and they spend it differently” (Moe, 2023: 113). It also challenges the assumption that individuals are consistently either “active” or “passive”, acknowledging that citizens can shift between various modes of citizenship. Recognising the co-existence of diverse citizenship styles and modes (see also Ohme, 2019; Thorson, 2015) prompts consideration of a broader variety of political activities, as well as the relationships that may exist between different actors and processes within the public sphere.

Deliberative systems theory, which conceptualises the public sphere as a system where different parts work together to form a cohesive whole (see Mansbridge et al., 2012), offers a strong foothold for exploring these relationships. Collectively, proponents of this perspective argue that the deliberative system should fulfil three main functions: producing well-informed democratic decisions (epistemic function), fostering mutual respect among citizens (ethical function), and ensuring inclusivity in the political process (participatory function) (Mansbridge et al., 2012; Holst & Moe, 2021). But, significantly, not every component of the system needs to excel in all functions; the strengths in one deliberative site can offset weaknesses in another.

When applied to citizenship, this perspective shifts our focus from individual citizens acting in isolation to citizens’ collective role (Moe, 2023). According to Christiano (2015), this collective role consists of choosing the aims or values which society ought to pursue and ensuring that society is pursuing the chosen aims. But, importantly, citizens need not pursue these aims in identical ways or with consistent intensity. Rather, the systemic perspective perceives democratic legitimacy as best served through functional differentiation, with different actors fulfilling different roles and relating to one another according to a division of labour (Chambers, 2013; Mansbridge et al., 2012).

A foundational component of civic engagement within a systemic understanding of the public sphere is public connection (Moe, 2020, 2023). Public connection refers to citizens’ orientation toward matters of public concern, which can be transformed into attention (Couldry et al., 2007). Public connection represents a fundamental level of engagement essential for citizens to collectively fulfil their shared civic duties and serves as a necessary precursor to more concerted forms of participation (Moe, 2023).

Moe (2020, 2023) has argued that the work involved in building and maintaining public connection is distributed among actors, with citizens supporting and relying on one another to gather, select, analyse, and evaluate information for decision-making. In this way, knowledge travels within and across social networks “between people with more or less expertise in different topics and varying degrees of interest in certain issues and developments” (Moe, 2020: 218). This perspective simultaneously lowers the threshold of good citizenship, recognising that citizens may engage with politics in differing ways and intensities, while still expecting all citizens to maintain at least minimal connection to public issues and be ready to act if necessary (Moe, 2020).

As social media enable citizens to contribute, distribute, and access information, these platforms have the potential to serve as key arenas for the distribution of public connection and expertise (Holst & Moe, 2021). To illustrate this point, in the forthcoming analysis I evoke the notion of the digital epistemic commons (see also Collins et al., 2020). With this concept, I position the online discourse as a shared, jointly managed assortment of intellectual resources – ideas, knowledge, and information – which can inform citizens’ political thinking and opinion formation (Nieminen, 2014). Unfortunately, the widespread accessibility and lack of gatekeepers leave this shared resource pool susceptible to a “tragedy of the commons” (Hardin, 1968), in the form of overcrowding and discourse pollution (Collins et al., 2020). I argue that the dual forces at play – social media’s potential epistemic function and the pathologies that threaten this function – shape citizens’ perceptions and define their approaches to appropriate and meaningful online political behaviour.

Spectating, in this context, encompasses receptive online processes, including seeking, selecting, viewing, and interpreting political content, as well as non-contributory actions, such as “liking” or “hiding” content, which can subtly influence content curation. It does not include creating, contributing, or sharing content. It is important to note that, like expression, spectating is not inherently positive nor meaningful. Nonetheless, as the forthcoming analysis demonstrates, it can, at times, encompass active and normatively desirable political behaviours.

In examining the positive dimensions of spectating, I interweave various theoretical perspectives. Along with the notions of “actively passive” citizenship (Amnå & Ekman, 2014; Lieberkind & Bruun, 2021; Schudson, 1998) and distributed citizenship (Chambers, 2013; Moe, 2020, 2023) addressed above, I draw on positive portrayals of political spectatorship (Felicetti, 2022; Green, 2010) and deliberative listening (Dobson, 2014; Goodin, 2003) from political theory. Additionally, I build on conceptualisations of silent social media usage as listening (Crawford, 2011; Lacey, 2013), theories of audiences as active (Livingstone, 2015; Schrøder, 2018), and active curation (Greene et al., 2022; Thorson & Wells, 2016) from communication studies. In this section, I briefly introduce each of these threads to provide context for the subsequent exploration of online spectating.

Green (2010) and Felicetti (2022) have each challenged the conventional characterisation of spectating as an inherently negative and disempowered mode of citizenship. In his pioneering work on the topic, Green (2010) highlighted the key role spectators play in the public sphere: watching, listening, and judging the merit of interlocutors’ words and deeds. Felicetti (2022) emphasised that spectatorship becomes empowering and positive when it involves active consideration and creation of meanings, with interpretive labour serving as a key differentiating feature from its more passive and disinterested forms.

This aligns with insights from reception studies, which highlight how audiences do not passively absorb information but, rather, actively make sense of media texts, decoding their meanings in the context of their personal experiences, interests, and knowledge to derive meaning and value (Livingstone, 2015; Schrøder, 2018). On social media, these assessments play a role in content curation processes: the production, selection, and filtering of content (Thorson & Wells, 2016). Along with other actors, including content creators, newsmakers, algorithms, and other users, users’ choices of what to watch, like, and so on subtly “nudge” algorithms, thereby influencing the content they may be shown in the future (Mathieu & Pavlíčková, 2017). Notably, due to the social element of curation – where user engagement influences the visibility of content for other users – these processes not only shape individual users’ future consumption but also exert a subtle force on the collective discourse (Thorson & Wells, 2016). In encompassing users’ curational choices and actions within spectating, I build on recent research which positions users’ intentional strategies for navigating online spaces and constructing their newsfeeds as proactive participation (Greene et al., 2022; Mathieu & Pavlíčková, 2017).

A key aspect of spectating is listening. Political theorists generally agree that listening is an essential component of effective deliberation (Dobson, 2014; Mansbridge, 2015). Listening enables citizens to better understand why individuals hold the views they do, thereby fostering respect (Goodin, 2003). Typically, listening and speaking are expected to happen concurrently, with all actors involved taking turns to speak and listen. However, the deliberative systems approach allows for a disaggregation of deliberative processes, meaning the expressive and reflective functions need not happen to the same degree in all persons or in every space (Ercan et al., 2019), and the insights gained from listening in one setting may inform and inspire participation in other settings (Holst & Moe, 2021). Goodin (2003) highlighted how deliberative processes occurring within the heads of individual citizens, where they weigh and evaluate different viewpoints, become relevant to the political process when those citizens develop opinions and, ultimately, cast votes that are informed by their internal-reflective “deliberation within”.

The notion of listening has also been productively used to reframe silent social media usage more positively (Adjin-Tettey & Garman, 2023; Crawford, 2011; Lacey, 2013). Crawford (2011: 64) defined such “listening” as encapsulating “ways of receiving and attending to the manifold discussions, ideas, and forms of content online”. The notion of online listening takes important steps toward the goals of this article. Nevertheless, considering the predominantly visual nature of contemporary social media, I propose spectating as a more fitting verb. Spectating also suggests a collective, attentive audience to which contributors direct their public performances, thereby reinforcing the integral role spectating users play within online communication flows. In what follows, I delve into the different activities encompassed in spectating, and the meanings they hold, in more detail.

The participants generally portrayed social media as playing an important role in their relationship with politics, particularly as tools for staying updated about political affairs, encountering different perspectives, and grounding their opinion formation. Their perceptions of appropriate and meaningful political behaviours were related to these aims. In what follows, I delve into these perceptions and behaviours. First, I address sub-question 1: How do participants perceive and articulate the appropriateness and significance of spectating as political participation? This is addressed by first exploring how spectating aligns with generalised norms and understandings of social media, and thereafter situating spectating within participants’ broader expectations for cooperative civic behaviour. The subsequent section addresses sub-question 2: What normatively desirable political behaviours are involved in spectating? Three interrelated activities – monitoring, critically consuming, and consciously curating – are presented, exploring the meanings they hold for citizens. Finally, before proceeding to the discussion, the concept of active spectating is defined and elucidated.

Participants depicted spectating as multifaceted, involving various politically relevant activities that are interconnected and often occur simultaneously. For simplicity, these activities are presented in three categories: monitoring, critical consumption, and conscious curating.

Grounded in these findings, I present the concept of active spectating as an intentional, effortful, and normatively desirable mode of online political participation encompassing monitoring, consciously curating, and critically consuming political content on social media. Positioning spectating as active aligns with insights from reception studies, highlighting that audiences do not simply absorb messages they encounter but actively make sense of them (Livingstone, 2015; Schrøder, 2018). Spectating enables deliberative listening, supporting citizens in developing more informed and considered opinions (Crawford, 2011; Goodin, 2003; Lacey, 2013). Aligning with Felicetti’s (2022) understanding of positive spectating, active spectating can involve considerable interpretive labour and allow users to better understand and engage with public issues. Active spectating also highlights the role of users as participatory agents in the digital space, who contribute to shaping public discourse through their engagement choices (Greene et al., 2022; Mathieu & Pavlíčková, 2017).

Drawing insights from mini focus groups among Norwegian young adults, this study addressed calls for heightened focus on silent behaviours within online deliberative processes (Holst & Moe, 2021; Jensen & Schwartz, 2021) by exploring spectating as a mode of online political participation.

The analysis established how spectating was positioned as socially appropriate and justifiable within the participants’ broader expectations for civic behaviour. It also outlined normatively desirable activities involved in spectating, including monitoring, critically consuming, and consciously curating political content. The findings suggest that silent online presence does not necessarily signify disengagement. Rather, it can involve active, intentional, and cooperative discursive participation, enabling citizens to maintain public connection, develop more considered opinions, and participate in other arenas. The study challenges the ranking of speaking above listening within theoretical and empirical studies of political behaviour, suggesting that the blanket expectation for users to express their opinions is misaligned with contemporary social media norms and understandings of good citizenship.

In line with other studies (Gagrčin et al., 2022; Sveningsson, 2015), the participants described their online political experiences, and their broader usage, primarily in terms of accessing information posted by others, rather than contributing or commenting themselves. The participants portrayed social media as a digital epistemic commons – a collaborative collection of information resources facilitating the exchange of ideas, news, expertise, and opinions among citizens and other actors. This shared resource was valued as a key tenet of their distributed public connection practice (Couldry et al., 2007; Moe, 2020, 2023). But unfortunately, the digital epistemic commons is vulnerable to overcrowding, distortion, and pollution (Collins et al., 2020; Ercan et al., 2019; Quandt, 2018), which can degrade it into what Cotter and Thorson (2022) described as an “information cacophony”.

The participants’ understandings of the social media discourse as a commons – shared, valuable, yet vulnerable – influenced their views regarding the appropriateness of different political behaviours. Rather than indiscriminately advocating for public expression, participants endorsed discursive citizenship norms (Gagrčin et al., 2022), valuing conscientious consideration of content contributed and consumed online.

This approach emphasises the epistemic function of the public sphere (Habermas, 2006; Mansbridge et al., 2012), advocating for discourse informed by diverse perspectives, rational argumentation, and expertise. In this cooperative understanding of the public sphere, the deliberative ideal of inclusion requires “getting all the positions on the table, as distinct from all the persons on the podium” (Goodin, 2003: 170). Choosing to not contribute can be a constructive, cooperative act, facilitating a richer exchange of perspectives while reducing others’ burden of navigating and finding reliable information (Gagrčin et al., 2022).

The findings contribute to a broader shift from identifying a singular model of good citizenship to recognising the diversity and interrelatedness of citizenship modes co-occurring within the public sphere (Chambers, 2013; Ohme, 2019; Thorson, 2015). The concept of active spectating underscores a more inclusive understanding of political participation, particularly illuminating online behaviours involved in monitorial (Schudson, 1998), standby (Amnå & Ekman, 2014), and reserved (Lieberkind & Bruun, 2021) modes of citizenship, as well as the ways these relate to more commonly studied expressive participation.

Conceptualising spectating as cooperative, discursive participation complements deliberative systems theory, which envisions deliberation as a collaborative process among diverse participants playing different roles within a broad, complex system (Chambers, 2013; Mansbridge et al., 2012; Moe, 2020). In this view, citizenship is a team effort: Everyone must learn the basic rules of the game, more interested or skilful players may specialise in certain roles, and not all players need to be – nor should be – actively playing at all times. From this perspective, the expectation to contribute or spectate is best understood as ideally distributed across citizens, topics, and time (Moe, 2023).

This study’s methodology and its inherent limitations shape the insights offered. The research took part within a specific geographic and temporal context, and involved a small, relatively homogenous sample of individuals. While the qualitative research design facilitated an in-depth exploration of citizens’ subjective understandings of spectating, it did not allow for analysis of how frequently participants engage in these behaviours, nor does it address the generalisability of the reported behaviours. Furthermore, a broader sample would likely have revealed other aspects of spectating that may have been overlooked.

It is crucial to continue to explore how citizens navigate and discern political content, assessing whether these activities align with constructive, active spectating practices, and understanding how they might perpetuate or challenge prevailing power structures (Gagrčin, 2023). Future research should examine these processes further, paying particular attention to how tacit skills, knowledge, and dispositions necessary for effective source critique and conscious curation are distributed across the population.

This study’s primary contribution is the illumination of normatively desirable, non-expressive behaviours that citizens can reasonably be expected to engage in and strive for when using social media. This study elevates the discussion on digital citizenship by illustrating how active spectating, characterised by monitoring, critical consumption, and conscious curation, can serve as a meaningful and cooperative form of participation in an era of information abundance.