Digitalization and Civic Participation in Rural Areas. A Systematic Review of Scientific Journals, 2010-2020 Authors Veronika Stein Leipzig University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4791-9615 Christian Pentzold Leipzig University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6355-3150 Sarah Peter Institute for Rural Development Research at Goethe University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1871-9067 Simone Sterly Institute for Rural Development Research at Goethe University https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3622-130X DOI: https://doi.org/10.14512/rur.112 Keywords: Participation, Civil Society, Digitalization, Literature Review, Rural Areas Abstract The smart village is digitally networked and participatory. Its “smartness”, in other words, should be based on interaction between technological infrastructures and civic engagement.While this vision has inspired European policymaking and public discourse in recent years, understanding of the interaction between digitalization and civic participation in rural areas remains limited. In order to fill this gap, this paperoffers a systematic review of journal contributions situated at the intersection of digitalization, participatory efforts and rural development. Overall, our study shows that digital rural development and its interplay with participation processes is still a niche concern in scientific journals. We find that articles focus primarily on projects seeking to increase broadband capacity. Second, they focus on the spatial characteristics of rural areas, where social relations and intermediaries play an important role. Third, they emphasize the integration of topdownmeasures with bottom-up initiatives. There is no single, dominant theoretical approach conceptualizing the intertwining of digitalization and civic participation processes in rural areas. It is evident that local social networks are strengthenedand maintained through both analogue and digital formats. Furthermore, the literature provides evidence that sustainable forms of digital engagement are based on civil society initiatives that are supported and accompanied by administrative measures. Downloads Download data is not yet available. Downloads PDF HTML XML Published 2022-03-10 How to Cite Stein, V., Pentzold, C., Peter, S. and Sterly, S. (2022) “Digitalization and Civic Participation in Rural Areas. A Systematic Review of Scientific Journals, 2010-2020”, Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning. DE. doi: 10.14512/rur.112. More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Online First Section Article License Copyright (c) 2022 Veronika Stein, Christian Pentzold, Sarah Peter, Simone Sterly This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Articles in Raumforschung und Raumordnung - Spatial Research and Planing are published under a Creative Commons license. Until Vol. 79 No. 1, articles were published under a CC BY-SA license. From Vol. 79 No. 2 (2021), the license applied is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY 4.0. Under this license, anyone may access, copy, redistribute, or adapt these articles, as long as the author and original source are properly cited and the contributions are distributed under the same license as the original.