Communicating Civic Engagement: Contrasting Models of Citizenship in the Youth Web Sphere

Abstract

Communication aimed at promoting civic engagement may become problematic when citizen roles undergo historic changes. In the current era, younger generations are embracing more expressive styles of actualizing citizenship defined around peer content sharing and social media, in contrast to earlier models of dutiful citizenship based on one-way communication managed by authorities. An analysis of 90 youth Web sites operated by diverse civic and political organizations in the United States reveals uneven conceptions of citizenship and related civic skills, suggesting that many established organization are out of step with changing civic styles.

Standby citizens: diverse faces of political passivity

“…Some have argued that voluntary activities and involvement in politics may indeed cross-fertilize one another (Burns et al, 2001;Fisher, 2012), and that, depending on the circumstances, voluntarism can certainly be political (Fiorina, 2002). What are new are the emerging forms of engagement among youths that seem to be signs of a new style of citizenship, manifested most notably in the web sphere (Loader, 2007;Bennett et al, 2011), but also in other modes that diversify agencies and repertoires as well as targets, to quote Norris (2002). In a sense, the very concept of 'politics' is broadened to include things like the political-ethical-based patterns of consumption at local markets (Micheletti, 2003) and food preferences (Micheletti and Stolle, 2009).…”

A case for cautious optimism? Active citizenship and the Australian civics and citizenship curriculum

“…We currently know little about the relationship between engagement with digital and social media and different characterisations of active citizenship. Indeed current, research on online youth civic engagement remains somewhat tentative, and precludes generalizable judgements about its scope, nature and impact (Bennett, Wells and Freelon, 2011). The lack of clarity regarding how young people are using social media as a tool for active citizenship may reflect the varied nature of, and possibilities for, political engagement on the Internet.…”

Social media and senior citizen advocacy: an inclusive tool to resist ageism?

“…For example, disabled people have found social networking platforms to be liberating in the absence of physical and visual barriers experienced in other public venues (Guo, Briscout, and Huang 2005;Seymour and Lupton 2004). However, the idea that online engagement actually produces positive "offline" outcomes in terms of activism, civic engagement, or political engagement, in any age bracket, is still being debated in the academic literature (Bennett, Wells, and Freelon 2011;Christiansen 2011;Conroy, Feezell, and Guerrero 2012;Obar, Zube, and Lampe 2012;Olorunnisola and Martin 2013). There appears, however, to be a correlation between online political engagement and offline political engagement among adults, thus countering the assumption that online political activity replaces offline political activity.…”