New media, NGOs and civic engagement: Qualitative research in the borderland between the “offline” and “online” worlds

The paper addresses the question of how to explore Slovak NGO use of new media to foster civic engagement. We argue that it is not possible to focus solely on the NGOs’ online communication; that would make sense only in the context of the overall communication. Hence, this paper deals with the borderlands between online and offline communication. It focuses on five main theoretical and methodological challenges: the fact that the existing body of research focuses on peak periods of public unrest, the predominance of an etic perspective, the predominance of quantitative studies, the blending of activities done on- and offline, and the complex, changing nature of the object of research. We sketch out several analytical strategies, focusing on qualitative approach and emic perspective