Digital Citizenship as Fluid Interface

Between Control, Contest and Culture

Sonja Vivienne, Anthony McCosker and Amelia Johns

Digital citizenship is a highly contested notion primed for critical scrutiny. With near ubiquitous use of mobile devices and social media platforms, there is an inherent tension between the promise of new modes of civic participation, inclusion and creativity, and the threat of misuse and misappropriation, alongside the risk of harm or harassment. Expectations of young people, educators, social service providers and government authorities are framed around the 'appropriate use of technology'. We are told to strive for safe, productive and civil practices in order to counter online harassment, trolling, bigotry, identity and reputation mismanagement, intrusive personal data collection, surveillance and privacy breaches. Thus, the notion of digital citizenship is invoked negatively to address problems, with less attention to the promises of creative culture and alternative modes of participation.

This book aims to challenge the prevailing normative sense of digital citizenship by exploring digital, mobile and social media affordances that, even in their risks and failings, can point towards innovation, social change and public good. Digital citizenship, we argue, needs reframing through empirical research and critical scholarship so it can better reflect the diverse experiences that constitute a life integrated with digital and networked technologies. Negotiating Digital Citizenship does this work by probing restrictions and opportunities for social action through new forms of control, possibilities for contest and the capacity for creative cultures of practice. Our definition of digital citizenship encompasses these three overlapping elements and is articulated through iterative processes, tested and contested through multiple forms of activism and reconfigured through creative expressions of identity and cultural action. Digital citizenship is not simply a set of rights and responsibilities or appropriate behaviours, but emerges as a fluid interface that connects control mechanisms with people and practices within even the most intimate of cultural contexts. Each of the chapters in this collection corresponds to one or more of these overlapping elements; but each builds and deepens our understanding of what digital citizenship is becoming.

Broadly speaking, understandings of citizenship have revolved around national identity and a list of material and philosophical expectations framed as the rights and responsibilities of a citizen subject. Some scholars lean more to measures of political or economic participation, while others consider distinct rhetorical stances (Young, 1997; 2011) spanning from deliberative (aimed at consensus) to communicative (aimed at mutual understanding). Other scholars such as Dahlgren (2006) argue for cultural citizenship that is inclusive of less formal definitions of civic agency and complexities of 'meaning, practices, communication and identities' (Dahlgren, 2006).

Meanwhile, back in 2007, Mossberger, Tolbert and McNeal defined digital citizens as those who use the internet 'effectively' and every day (Mossberger et al., 2007). Their approach emphasises participation in society through digital infrastructures and the internet. This entails three aspects of online participation — inclusion in social discourses through digital literacy, facilitation of democratic participation and equal opportunity in the marketplace. Their focus builds on the dominant US conception of citizenship through civic and economic participation, with the 'digital' as a form of arbiter or mediating adjunct. Similarly, Couldry et al. (2014) consider 'digitally supported' activity but extend the parameters wider to canvas 'storytelling, narrative, story archiving and commentary'. They also call for 'recognition' as a defining trait of digital citizenship, although this is a measure that is complicated by asking, recognised by whom? This question corresponds with broader citizenship debates, in which citizenship is often regarded as a tool for integrating subjects into the nation state (Marshall, 1977; Schudson, 1999). Under policies for managing cultural diversity, this has involved formal minority recognition whilst maintaining the core values of the hegemonic culture. Critics of this approach have argued that this does not meet the needs of various marginalised groups including, for example, disabled people, diverse gender and sexualities, and migrant, ethnic and cultural minority youth, who have a strong desire for increased agency and social participation beyond the bounded forms of recognition on offer (Noble, 2011; Harris, 2013).

Throughout the history of citizenship debates there is a through line to do with being 'a part of' something bigger than oneself (society, nation state, republic, city-based community), or alternatively being 'apart from' that thing (indigenous subjects, asylum seekers, temporary migrants). In the context of ubiquitous media technology, we argue that the digital is now a part of, rather than apart from, citizenship and an implicit component of new claims to cultural rights, inclusion and participation. Following calls for an end to digital dualisms that somewhat arbitrarily distinguish between 'virtual' and 'real' lives, we consider the possibility that emergent digital norms — including literacies, surveillance, resistance and creativity — are intrinsically intertwined with the fluid acts of being and meaning making that constitute citizenship. Now, more than ever, these acts traverse spaces, times and...