Creating opportunities for digital engagement and participation

Worldwide, digital media are used by laypersons for health-related purposes. Laypersons’ engagement and participation on the subject of health is the focus of this article, in which I explore how digital media create opportunities for laypersons to engage with information and participate on a health topic which has been subjected to controversy, namely HPV vaccination. The analysis is based on an inductive multidisciplinary literature review of research on digital media and HPV vaccination. In the analysis, I apply Corner’s (2011) understanding of engagement and Kelty and colleagues’ (2015) seven dimensions of participation. I find two kinds of engagement, namely using digital media as information sources and interpersonal communication, that both only satisfi es few dimensions of participation. I argue that broader participation might be unachievable on health subjects such as vaccination and other subjects that require a high degree of expertise to understand. Due to this, laypersons cannot necessarily engage or participate further