Sociologica, 3/2013 - Copyright © 2013 by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna. 1
Essays
Studying the Nexus between Collective
Action Dynamics and the Web 2.0
A Continuous Learning Experience. A Reply
to Comments
by Elena Pavan
doi: 10.2383/75771
I would like to begin this response by thanking Bernie Hogan, Nicholas W.
Jankowski, Brian D. Loader and Eugenia Siapera for their useful and insightful com-
ments. A person could count on his/her fingers the number of times it is possible to
ponder over her work confronting with such a panel of experts. Occasions like this
one are to be welcomed as valuable learning experiences during which new knowl-
edge can be acquired, our arguments can be better specified and we can critically
reflect on the limits of our research.
Together, these four comments outline the contours of a much-needed research
agenda to face the challenges that derive from three inherent features of socio-tech-
nical processes: their diversity, generated by the simultaneous involvement of social
and technical agencies; their dynamics, stemming from the continuous evolution and
change of both social actors and technologies; and their complexity, as relations estab-
lished amongst and between social actors and technologies are countless and deploy
recursively across the boundary between the online and offline spaces. In a context in
which methodologies are still very fluid and a plurality of research efforts are carried
on independently one from another, guidelines to build a common competence and
shared research practices are urgently needed. Let me then try to summarize these
guidelines, so that they can become a collective resource for a more rigorous and
fine-grained research of contemporary socio-technical practices.
First, in order to account for the inherent dynamic feature of collective partic-
ipation processes, which is now exaggerated by the mediation of information and