8. CIDADANIA
Information is the
oxygen of the
modern age (…)
the Goliath of
totalitaranism will
be brought down
by the David of
the microchip.
Ronald Reagan
Junho 1989
9. CIDADANIA
It is time to stop
the anarchy on
the Internet.
We cannot allow
this great
technological
achievement of
man to be turned
into an
information
garbage heap.
Alexander
Lukashenko
Agosto 2007
11. CIDADANIA
the practice of citizenship has
conventionally been separated from
entertainment, leisure and
consumption activities. This
interpretation is based on a traditional but
narrow view of the public sphere
that focuses on political and civic rights
and responsabilities
13. CIDADANIA
Public sphere (Habermas, 1992)
universal space where rational
citizens engage in the political
process through critical-rational
deliberation
14. CIDADANIA
citizenship is practised as much
through everyday life, leisure, critical
consumption and popular entertainment
as it is through debate and
engagement with capital ‘P’ politics
15. CIDADANIA
Public sphere (Habermas, 1996)
The public sphere cannot be conceived
as an institution and certainly not as an
organization (...)
(...) substantive differentiation of
[multiple] public spheres’ that are
not overdetermined by expert
discourses but that are
accessible to laypersons
16. CIDADANIA
McGuigan, 2005
exclusion of everyday life, affect,
and pleasure from our
understanding of democratic
participation is a serious
misrecognition of some of the
most powerful modes of citizen
engagement
22. CIDADANIA
community
shifted away from a simplistic
dichotomy between online (‘virtual
cyberspace’) and offline (‘real life’)
modes of communication and interaction
which were previously seen as distinct
and unrelated
23. CIDADANIA
Castells (2001)
portfolios of sociability
that is, interwoven networks of
kinship, friends and peers that may
originate from online interaction, are taken
into and continued face-to-face in the
offline world and vice versa
27. CIDADANIA
Research found
70% believing in the importance of helping
the community,
68% already doing something to support a
cause on a monthly basis
82% describing themselves at least
‘somewhat involved,’
it does seem that the majority of young
people are convinced that supporting a
social cause is something they should do.
28. CIDADANIA
there is a strong disparity between interest
and involvement,
an activation gap
29. CIDADANIA
“the broad decline in youth participation might
be better redressed through offline initiatives,
strengthening the opportunities structures of
young people’s lives and the ‘communities of
practice’ available to them, rather than building
Web sites which, though they will engage a few,
will struggle to reach the majority or, more
important, to connect that majority to those with
power over their lives in a manner that young
people themselves judge effective and
consequential.”
Nick Couldry, Livingstone, S. and Markham, T. (2007),
'Connection or Disconnection? Tracking the Mediated Public
Sphere in Everyday Life' in R. Butsch (ed.) Media and Public
Spheres. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 28-42.
30. CIDADANIA
“Focus groups with young people suggest a
generation bored with politics, critical of the
online offer, instead interested in celebrity and
conforming to peer norms.
Young people protest that ‘having your say’
does not seem to mean ‘being listened to’ and
so they feel justified in recognising little
responsibility to participate.”
Sonia Livingstone, Nick Couldry, and Tim Markham,
Youthful Steps Towards Civic Participation: Does the
Internet Help? in Young Citizens in the Digital Age:
Political Engagement, Young People and New Media,
ed. Barney Loader (London: Routledge, forthcoming).
31. CIDADANIA
‘voice’
It isn’t if nobody seems to
be listening
32. CIDADANIA
This population is both self-guided and
in need of guidance: although a
willingness to learn new media by point-
and-click exploration might come naturally
to today’s student cohort, there’s
nothing innate about knowing
how to apply their skills to the
processes of democracy (...)
33. CIDADANIA
Internet media are not offered as the
solution to young people’s disengagement
from political life, but as a possibly
powerful tool to be deployed toward
helping them engage
Rheingold, Howard. “Using Participatory Media and Public
Voice to Encourage Civic Engagement." Civic Life Online:
Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Edited by W.
Lance Bennett. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge,
MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 97–118.
34. CIDADANIA
“[t]he policy of ‘targetting’ young people so
that they can ‘play their part’ can be read
either as a spur to youth activism or an
attempt to manage it (...)”
35. CIDADANIA
(...) Indeed, the very notion of youth e-
citizenship seems to be caught between
divergent strategies of management and
autonomy...”
Stephen Coleman in Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital
Media Can Engage Youth. Edited by W. Lance Bennett. The
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on
Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press,
2008.
