  Online communities are increasingly becoming a venue for socializing,
engaging in politics, and conducting business. Ironically, the same enabling
social media technology is encroaching into everyday life and reconfiguring
relations of participation. Yet, while participation in online communities has
been widely studied empirically, theoretical aspects of this social phenomenon
need further investigation. This paper uses a sociomaterial perspective to
further develop theoretical explanation of participation in online communities
and the impacts of not participating online. A sociomaterial view of online
community participation decenters the human participant and recognises the
agency of technology, thus creating a richer understanding than epistemological
paradigms. Using converging hermeneutic circles, the paper first reviews
literature for evidence of sociomaterial applications to online community
research, and then proposes a framework for expressing participation in online
communities from a sociomaterial perspective. Subsequently, implications of the
findings and the potential for future studies are discussed.
