Research on participation of social media users has contributed to our understanding of modern citizenship, civic engagement, and contemporary public sphere. Despite a growing interest in participatory practices in social media little is known about the factors affecting political participation of social media users. Based on an online survey of 700 social media users in Poland, this study examines the relationship between social capital (defined at the individual level as a resource embedded in personal networks) and political participation. It has been established that there is a contradictory relationship between social capital and participatory activities of social media users. Apparently, differences between the resources that are only embedded in personal networks on the one hand, and those that can be mobilized for purposive actions on the other, matter when association between social capital and political participation is considered. Moreover, the presence of these resources significantly varies across different types of social relations (family, friends and acquaintances) of respondents engaged in different participatory actions.

Ireland has become one of the main destination countries for Polish migrants after Poland’s EU accession in 2004. While much of the literature on Polish migration to Ireland post-2004 focuses on its labour-market element, in this paper we analyse the political participation of Polish migrants. We utilise data from a survey conducted by the Centre of Migration Research (University of Warsaw) with Polish migrants in Ireland which documents low levels of political engagement as measured by voting turnout in Polish presidential and parliamentary elections as well as the Irish local elections and elections to the European Parliament. A lack of knowledge about political participation rights or how to engage in voting is one explanation for the low levels of voting, especially in Irish local and European parliamentiary elections. Another explanation may be the attitude that migrants have towards the political system and how they can influence it. Polish migrants predominantly report that they have no or little influence on politics in Poland and have relatively less trust in the authorities and politicians there (compared to Ireland). The key individual-level characteristic affecting Polish migrant respondents’ electoral participation in Ireland is their (lack of) voting habit formed before migration.

Contemporary Polish historiography tends to focus predominantly on the main actors of the political transformation of 1989 and there are communist and opposition elites considered as such. In that perspective, Polish society remains a community on which the views of the elites are projected, and the myth about the birth of ci-vil society on the ruins of communism as early as 1989 may serve as a perfect example of such process. In reality, however, the Polish society was overwhelmingly apolitical, uninterested in political par-ticipation and to a large extent socially inactive. There are many reasons which caused this situation: starting from the martial law, which in December 1981 broke the backbone of the mass social movement that was the legal ‘Solidarity’, as well as the very 45 years of communism themselves, during which a social initiative was na-tionalized, and citizens were in fact deprived of it. As a result, the interpretations of the events of 1989 should be demythologized, al-so in order to understand the popularity of the slogans about “end-ing the 1989 revolution”, which still tend to appear in the public discourse in Poland.

Liberal and communitarian orientation refers to different concepts of the relationships linking citizens with the political community. A significant proportion of Poles combine their various elements, but both orientations are antagonistic in the prototype form. Earlier studies have shown that the distinction between liberalism vs. communitarianism was one of the critical dimensions of the Polish socio-political polarization. These two different concepts of the community imply two sets of hypotheses concerning their moral justifications and specific patterns of civic engagement. The hypotheses were verified in two survey studies conducted on large nationwide samples (N = 710 and N = 1477). Study 1 has shown that the hypothesized liberal orientation's embedding in individualizing moral values found empirical support only for the code of Liberty/Oppression. On the other hand, communitarian orientation turned out to be positively related not only to all components of binding moral values (Ingroup loyalty, Authority, Sanctity) but also to some individualizing moral values (Care, Fairness). Pattern of relationships with moral values largely explains the differences observed in study 2. In this study liberals are better at unconventional activity, which consists in exerting direct pressure on various groups of decision-makers. Communitarianism is more often expressed in helping and cooperation at the local or neighborhood community level. People with a liberal mindset want to be active when they perceive a threat to personal freedoms, human rights, tolerance, and socio-cultural diversity. Communitarians want to protect/cultivate traditional values and the welfare of the local and national community. For both orientations, competing values - liberal or communitarian - seem not even minimally worthy of public involvement.

Recently, the issue of intercultural relations between immigrants and the host society has been widely discussed. Taking into account the increasing spatial mobility of non-EU foreigners, it seems highly important to examine their relations with the host community on the local level. This article presents the results of the qualitative study conducted in the first quarter of 2014 in the Lesznowola municipality (Mazowieckie province, Piaseczno district) in Poland. It aims at analysing the situation of the Vietnam-ese community and its engagement in the local life of the municipality and examine attitudes of both Vietnamese and Poles towards prospects for granting local voting rights to migrants in Poland. Through several years of successful business and social cooperation, the Vietnamese immigrants have become a recognisable part of the social landscape of the municipality. The degree of social and political par-ticipation at the local level on the part of the Vietnamese community has also increased, which can be observed, for example, through such practical indicator as cooperation with local educational institu-tions. Therefore, we can argue that the Vietnamese community has been transforming itself from a marginalised and self-sufficient homogeneous group into more and more self-aware and active socio-political group of actors.

This study investigates the political engagement of Vietnamese immigrants in Poland on social media. It employs the typology of online political participation as a theoretical framework to determine the pattern of online in-volvement in the political sphere staged by the migrant group. Through analysing materials relating to political discussions created daily on an online community of the Polish Vietnamese, collected by doing netnography, this study shows that the political activism on social media of Vietnamese immigrants in Poland exists and varies. Vietnamese-migrant users discuss homeland politics and express views about political issues in the host country as well as other countries by creating non-mobilising posts (Information and Diffusion), while being inclined to produce posts with calls for action (Instruction and Promotion) to criticise social injustice and mobilise equality. This study also found a growing critical attitude towards homeland politics among Vietnamese-origin individu-als in the country. The findings have practical implications for associations and state actors in both the host and home countries to account for the evolvement of the migrant community.