It has been acknowledged the importance of associations, political as well as nonpolitical, for the foundation of democracy. In the last three-four decades the number of associations in Western countries have decreased rapidly and there is a fear of negative implications for the future of democracy. Putnam suggests the importance of associations to be their production of social capital, that is, reciprocal trust between people involved in such networks. This article argues for a shift from this focus of social capital to the communicative, relational and cognitive aspects suggested by Nahapiet & Ghoshal. This makes conversation and achieving common goals playing a significant role in associations’ positive effects on democracy. Today people increasingly build their relations and perform communicative action on the Internet, to achieve the same common goals they used to strive for in real life associations. Taking off from Schudsons model, distinguishing social and democratic talk, the communicative and democratic implications of participating in an online discussion performed by a fan culture, is investigated. The conclusion is, something Putnam hints at in his broad investigation into the decreasing activity in American associations, that the production of social capital might today also be digital.