Summary

Starting from a definition of "participation", which is identified as a broadly applicable "revolving door concept", Hug addresses the increasing disillusionment in the face of the unfulfilled participatory educational promises or "economic promotion" implied therein by digialization.

This is the argumentative basis for the problematization of the tension between free educational media (OER) and the global media education industry. In this context, Hug refers to the "boom of pleas for openness", which promises participation in educational processes and digital inclusion. He distinguishes between older and newer OER discourses and recognizes in the latter the tendency to forget history and the abandonment of an educational-historical or -theoretical substructure.

Hug argues for balancing ambivalences and one-sided perspectives in the context of the OER movement and developing differentiated understandings of virtual participation on this basis.