Participatory and collaborative governance

Participative and collaborative governance (PCG) aims to improve the legitimacy and trust in systems of governance. It provides opportunities to interested parties to become involved in shaping the goals, design and practice of governance. Informed by critical political economy and science and technology studies, this chapter considers what participative and collaborative governance means in the context of media and communication, and how it is enacted through human and algorithmic mechanisms. Using examples from digital games and social media in Western democracies, it identifies the actors, mechanisms and values informing governance, and the important role that actions taken by users, academics, civil society groups, legal activists and whistle-blowers play in both implementing, but also contesting, dominant values and practices in media and communication governance. The conclusion reflects on the gap between our expectations of participative and collaborative governance and the performance of these systems in practice.