Abstract
The introduction of the special issue on the special issue on "Histories of media(ted) participation" starts from the attention spent on the notion of participation, which has oscillated over time and within different academic disciplines and societal fields. Within media studies, in the recent years, participation re-established itself as a prominent concept, a process which is very much connected to the popularization of the internet.
At the same time, these 'new' technologies in many cases have led to formulations of strong claims to novelty and uniqueness, in combination with processes of amnesia in relation to the societal roles of old media technologies. This special issue took on this challenge to combine historical research with the study of participatory media.