but are hip hop and facebook a kind of politics?

is everything politics?

maybe hip hop and facebook are social, but are they also civic?

personally, i think there are exceptions where hip hop and facebook have political or civic elements, but most of the time they do not.

reminds me of "low cost engagement" - being engaged in ways that don't cost a lot of time and effort. sounds like an oxymoron.

Hey you all,

I quite agree with the comment that online participation does not necessarily means active engagement in political issues.
I am from Hungary and have an interest in minority-majority issues and what i see is that the internet is a new and alternative way for expression of thoughts and view, sometimes much more radical than in the everyday encounters, but it does not at all necessarily leads to radical activism. What i meant here is that sometimes there are quite racist views in the different networking sites, stereotypes are expressed amazingly explicitely and openly even from the so called "friends", but still (either racist or anti one)activism is rare and fragmented.

Hi everybody,
Don't underestimate the value of online participation for civic action. I'm member of an online community called "sansuresansur" (an anti-internet-censorship movement in Turkey http://www.sansuresansur.org/) becomes a physical and effective organization today. The movement initially started in social media and uses very well the viral techniques of online political action. This only one example. There are many others. The problem is the focusing and using the power of the word.