Traditional media is often described as currently being in a state of decline. Historically, it has repeatedly been pointed out that it has failed, in various ways, in its task of providing truthful and relevant news and that it has not managed to engage the public in the sort of active participation that is required in order for any democracy to thrive. Recently, much has been written about the possibilities offered by new participatory online media, such as citizen journalism, in search of alternatives to the old, struggling media channels. (Barlow, 2010; Bruns, 2010; Carpenter, 2010; Fico et al., 2013; Goode, 2009; Meadows, 2012; Reich, 2008). Online participatory media content is generally thought to be unexpensive to produce since it is performed and published by non-paid laymen. Furthermore, it can offer news, information and perspectives without the constraint of traditional media-logic and from different perspectives than traditional media. It is therefore often construed as an important alternative that could enrich public discourse. On top of that, participatory features of new media can involve citizens in the very process of producing content, and therefore has a potential to boost civic engagement in public discourse. Although careful not to dismiss the democratic possibilities of online participatory media, we argue that the focus on these aspects has, in part, guided the spotlight of research to certain areas of online participation – where it is obvious that these democratic gains have a possibility of being realised (Karlsson & Holt, 2013). In turn, other uses of participatory media, have been neglected. Examples abound on the internet, of a darker side of participation. After all, groups of people could well – and do – pool their resources, collaborate in networks, produce, share and edit content that is aimed at achieving common goals that are far from democratic. The most striking example of this is the Wikipedia-like dictionary Metapedia(dot)org. It has borrowed its collaborative and participatory structure, way of working and even layout from Wikipedia. But it has a “metapolitical purpose, to influence the mainstream debate, culture and historical view” by providing an alternative description of the world, one that is in correspondence with racist ideology. If one looks up the term “holocaust”, for example, the definition is revisionist and states that it is a fraudulent term used to spread “germanophobia”. The network behind Metapedia is clearly working according to the principles of “collective intelligence”, often mentioned in connection with the democratic potential of new participatory online media. But their aim is obviously contrary to what is often assumed about these types of media. This “dark side” of participation is in need of scholarly attention. Theoretically, it forces us as media scholars to rethink concepts such as “collective intelligence”, in order to come to terms with the ways in which participatory media are used.

In this paper, the notion of metapolitical participation is presented and discussed in relation to a case study of the online identitarian dictionary Metapedia.org. While political participation traditionally entails activities such as voting, demonstrating, petitioning etc., metapolitics, as a concept used by identitarians, excludes such expressions of political participation. Instead, metapolitics, as visible in Metapedia’s slogan “Countering semantic distortion worldwide”,  is defined as a way of influencing culture and societal discourse through cultural activities, such as compiling online dictionaries. Metapolitical participation describes  a form of online participation that is not compatible with traditional notions of democratic participation.  As the aim of Metapedia is to provide alternative (identitarian) constructions of reality, the mainstream media naturally becomes the main antagonist in their cultural battle. Due to this tension between mainstream media and the metapolitical agenda, we conducted  a qualitative content analysis of the media criticism at Metapedia. The empirical material consists of all articles (231 in total) in the category “massmedia” at Metapedia.org. In the articles we identified five main themes of media criticism: erroneous reporting, criticism of ownership and influence, “naming and shaming”, discursive contestations, alternative phraseology, as well as an additional theme dealing with promotion of other media outlets within the counter-public sphere. Our findings reveal that the authors at Metapedia express a deep anxiety, uneasiness, discontent and cynicism about mediated public discourse which is seen as deliberately marginalizing certain perspectives, covering up uncomfortable facts and is guided by a general principle of conformity to “political correctness”.