Would summarizing peer-reviewed articles on a blog count as academic participation?
In a comment, you clarify that by "count as academic participation", you mean "I could call myself an academic."

No, you could not call yourself an academic just because you write a blog about academic research. Or, rather, you can call yourself whatever you want but most people interpret the phrase "I am an academic" as meaning "I'm a member of the teaching and/or research staff at a university." Using the phrase to mean anything substantially different from that would be very misleading.