What does participation mean in hybrid spaces? – youth perspective

I grew up online, but I didn’t grow up only online. For me, participation has always moved between rooms and screens, between bodies sitting in circles and faces framed by webcams. I don’t experience “offline” and “online” as opposites. They overlap constantly. And yet, when youth organisations talk about participation in hybrid spaces, it often feels like we’re still pretending they are two separate worlds.

Hybrid participation is usually described as a technical challenge. How do we connect people online and offline at the same time? How do we manage sound, cameras, platforms, links? These questions matter, but they are not the real issue. The real issue is much simpler and much harder: who is actually present, who is visible, and who has influence when participation happens across spaces?

I’ve been in meetings where I was “present” online, but felt more like background noise. I could listen, maybe type something in the chat, sometimes unmute myself if the timing felt right. Meanwhile, the real conversation was happening in the room. Jokes were exchanged, eye contact mattered, energy circulated between bodies. Online participation existed, but it was thinner, flatter, easier to ignore. No one intended to exclude anyone. But intention doesn’t change experience.

This is what hybrid spaces do if we don’t think carefully about them. They create different layers of participation without naming them. Being “there” doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. And when youth organisations say participation is open, I always want to ask: open to what, and on whose terms?

For young people, this matters deeply. Many of us already navigate a world where our voices are heard unevenly. Hybrid spaces can either amplify that imbalance or challenge it. If participation is reduced to access — having the link, the device, the connection — then we miss the point. Access is necessary, but it is not enough. Participation is about influence. About being able to shape the conversation, not just observe it.

One of the things that frustrates me most is how quickly silence online is interpreted as disengagement. If someone is quiet in a physical room, we might read their body language, their attention, their presence. Online, silence is often seen as absence. But sometimes silence is care. Sometimes it’s listening. Sometimes it’s processing. Sometimes it’s fatigue. Hybrid spaces compress all of that into a blank square.

Being digitally literate doesn’t automatically make participation easier. In some ways, it makes the contradictions sharper. I know how platforms work. I know how algorithms privilege certain kinds of speech, how speed is rewarded, how confidence looks louder than doubt. I also know that not everyone feels equally entitled to speak, especially in spaces where authority is still anchored in physical presence or institutional roles.

When youth organisations move into hybrid formats, they often replicate offline hierarchies without noticing. Facilitators speak to the room, not the screen. Decisions are summarised after they are already made. Online participants are “invited” to comment, but rarely to shape the agenda. Participation becomes reactive instead of generative.

What would it mean to design hybrid spaces differently?

For me, it would start with honesty. Acknowledging that hybrid participation is not automatically equal, and that it requires intention, not just infrastructure. It would mean slowing down meetings, making space for written contributions, rotating facilitation roles, and recognising that presence can look different without being less real.

It would also mean trusting young people more. Not just as participants, but as co-designers of digital spaces. We know how it feels when a platform invites us in but doesn’t listen. We know when participation is symbolic. And we also know how creative, playful and powerful digital collaboration can be when it’s taken seriously.

Hybrid participation has the potential to expand democracy in youth work, especially for those who cannot always travel, speak loudly, or be physically present. But only if organisations are willing to rethink what participation actually means. Not as attendance. Not as visibility. But as agency.

For me, participation means knowing that my contribution matters, regardless of where my body is. It means that my silence is not misread, my presence is not secondary, and my ideas can shape outcomes. Hybrid spaces don’t have to dilute participation. But they force us to be more precise about what we value.

Maybe the real question isn’t how to include online participants in offline spaces, but how to create spaces that don’t assume one form of presence is more legitimate than another. Until we ask that question seriously, hybrid participation will remain technical — instead of political.

And for young people who already live between worlds, that distinction makes all the difference.

Output of the project “Digital Navigator”, 2024-2025, co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.