Making the Case forDigital Citizenship

Anne CollierExecutive Director, Editor

NetFamilyNews.orgCo-director

ConnectSafely.org

Net in its ‘toddler phase’

A living Internet

HuffingtonPost.com

Content is social now

Pat Gaines

Internet use is fluid

Tom Olliver

Net is everywhere

Ben Heine

Embedded in ‘real life’

Mirrors offline life

Shoko Muraguchi

Risk spectrum reflects life too

Marc Dezemery

Social sites like oil rigs??

Calum Davidson

• It’s protective • Consistent with today’s media environment• Promotes agency – critical thinking, self-actualization (for user-driven media)• Supports civic engagement online & off• Turns users into stakeholders (citizens)• Supports community as well as individual goals, well-being

So why digital citizenship?

5 key elements• Rights and responsibilities• Participation or “civic engagement”• Norms of behavior or "good

citizenship" or etiquette• A sense of belonging or membership• Three literacies: tech, media, social

The most basic definition

“The central task of citizenship is learning how

to be good to one another.”

– A.J. Patrick Liszkiewicz

Proposed definitionCitizenship: the rights & responsibilities of full,

positive engagement in a participatory world

• Rights – access & participation, free speech, privacy, physical & psychological safety, safety of material and intellectual property

• Responsibilities – respect & civility => self & others; protecting own/others’ rights & property; respectful participation; learning/benefitting from the literacies of a networked world

• Safety and support• Power – as agents for social good (online & offline)• Personal success in and with social media and life• Opportunities to collaborate with fellow change agents• Opportunities to co-create the social norms of social media• Professional training & leadership opportunities online and offline.

What’s in it for youth?

Comments from a youth panel last month: • “Digital citizenship sounds distant and abstract.”• “Not taught and practiced in school, so how can we practice it?”• “Maybe ‘participant’ is a better word than ‘citizen’.”

But can youth relate?!

“If the notion of digital citizenship in policy discourse is to have traction with its constituents and prove effective, it is vital that our understanding and use of the termbe directly informed by young people’s

values and insights.” --Third & Strider, University of Western Sydney

No citizenshipwithout the citizens

Thank you!Anne Collier

anne@connectsafely.org