In 2000, a government bill set out Sweden’s aim to become an information society for all its citizens, with an emphasis on building confidence, developing competence and providing access to new information and communication technologies (ICTs). This article grounds these policy objectives in a study of ICT use among Swedish working-class citizens. Following a discussion of the opportunities which ICT access and usage offer for the exercise of Swedish citizenship, the authors highlight respondent-identified obstacles that stand in the way of realizing this vision of the Internet as civic tool, including cost, workplace disparities, language competence and technical difficulties. The article concludes with several suggestions for overcoming these obstacles.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso .
2.
Barber, B. (1998) ‘Clansmen, Consumers, and Citizens: Three Takes on Civil Society’, pp. 9-30 in R.K. Fullinwider (ed.) Civil Society, Democracy, and Civic Renewal. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield .
3.
Baym, N. (2000) Tune In, Log On: Soaps, Fandom, and Online Community. London: Sage .
Bellamy, C. and J.A. Taylor (1998) Governing in the Information Age. Buckingham: Open University Press .
6.
Benhabib, S. (ed.) (1996) Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
7.
Bernstein, B. (1975) Class, Codes and Control: Theoretical Studies Towards a Sociology of Language. New York: Schocken Books .
8.
Blumler, J.G. and M. Gurevitch (1995) The Crisis of Public Communication. London: Routledge .
9.
Breslow, H. (1997) ‘Civil Society, Political Economy, and the Internet’, pp. 236-257 in S.G. Jones (ed.) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London: Sage .
10.
Bromberg, H. (1996) ‘Are MUDs Communities? Identity, Belonging and Consciousness in Virtual Worlds’, pp. 143-152 in R. Shields (ed.) Cultures of Internet: Virtual Spaces, Real Histories, Living Bodies. London: Sage .
11.
Bryan, C., R. Tsagarousianou and D. Tambini (1998) ‘Electronic Democracy and the Civic Networking Movement in Context’, pp. 1-17 in R. Tsagarousianou, D. Tambini and C. Bryan (eds) Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London: Routledge .
12.
Campbell, A., A. Harrop and B. Thompson (1999) ‘Towards the Virtual Parliament: What Computers Can Do for MPs’, pp. 26-41 in S. Coleman, J. Taylor and W. van de Donk (eds) Parliament in the Age of the Internet. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government .
13.
Carter, A. and G. Stokes (eds) (1998) Liberal Democracy and its Critics: Perspectives in Contemporary Political Thought. Cambridge: Polity Press .
14.
Castells, M. (1999) The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell .
15.
Coleman, S. (1999) ‘Westminster in the Information Age’, pp. 9-25 in S. Coleman,J. Taylor and W. van de Donk (eds) Parliament in the Age of the Internet. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government .
16.
Coleman, S. (2001) ‘The Transformation of Citizenship’, pp. 108-126 in B. Axford and R. Huggins (eds) New Media and Politics. London: Sage .
17.
Dahlberg, L. (2001) ‘Democracy via Cyberspace: Mapping the Rhetorics and Practices of Three Prominent Camps’ , New Media and Society3(2): 157-177 .
18.
Dahlgren, P. (1999) ‘EU, medborgarkultur och mediernas demokratiska uppgift’ [The EU, Civic Culture, and the Media’s Democratic Task], pp. 135-160 in E. Amnå (ed.) Politikens medialisering, SOU 1999: 126. Stockholm: Fakta Info Direkt .
19.
Dahlgren, P. (2000) ‘Media, Citizenship and Civic Culture’, pp. 310-328 in J. Curran and M. Gurevitch (eds) Mass Media and Society, 3rd edn. London: Arnold .
20.
Dahlgren, P. (2003) ‘Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the Evolving Media Milieu’, in J. Corner and D. Pels (eds) Media and the Restyling of Politics: Consumerism, Celebrity, Cynicism. London: Sage .
21.
Davis, R. (1999) The Web of Politics: The Internet’s Impact on the American Political System. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
22.
De Tocqueville, A. (1997) Om demokratin i Amerika, Vols. 1 & 2 [Democracy in America, Vols 1 and 2], trans. Ervin Rosenberg. Stockholm: Atlantis . (Orig. pub. 1835.)
23.
Everard, J. (2000) Virtual States: The Internet and The Boundaries of the Nation State. London: Routledge .
24.
Fernback, J. (1997) ‘The Individual Within the Collective: Virtual Ideology and the Realization of Collective Principles’, pp. 36-54 in S.G. Jones (ed.) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London: Sage .
25.
Fidler, R. (1997) Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press .
26.
Government of Sweden (2000) Regeringens proposition 1999/2000: 86 ‘Ett informationssamhälle för alla’ [Government Bill: ‘An Information Society for All’]. Stockholm: Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications .
27.
Hague, B.N. and B.D. Loader (1999) ‘Digital Democracy: An Introduction’, pp. 3-22 in B.N. Hague and B.D. Loader (eds) Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age. London: Routledge .
28.
Hamelink, C. (2000) The Ethics of Cyberspace. London: Sage .
29.
Haywood, T. (1998) ‘Global Networks and the Myth of Equality: Trickle Down or Trickle Away’, pp. 19-34 in B.D. Loader (ed.) Cyberspace Divide: Equality, Agency and Policy in the Information Society. London: Routledge .
30.
Heater, D. (1999) What is Citizenship? Cambridge: Polity Press .
31.
Holderness, M. (1998) ‘Who Are the World’s Information Poor?’, pp. 35-56 in B.D. Loader (ed.) Cyberspace Divide: Equality, Agency and Policy in the Information Society. London: Routledge .
32.
Holmes, D. (1997) ‘Introduction’, pp. 1-45 in D. Holmes (ed.) Virtual Politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace. London: Sage .
33.
Hutchison, D. (1999) Media Policy: An Introduction. London: Blackwell .
34.
Jensen, J.F. (1998) ‘Communication Research After the Mediasaurus? Digital Convergence, Digital Divergence’ , Nordicom Review19(1): 43-44 .
35.
Jones, S.G. (ed.) (1994) Cybersociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. London: Sage .
36.
Kitchin, R. (1998) Cyberspace: The World in the Wires. Chichester: John Wiley .
37.
Lövheim, M. (2002) ‘Nätet - en plats för nya former av gemenskap’ [The Net: A Place for New Forms of Community], pp. 145-172 in P. Dahlgren (ed.) Internet, media och kommunikation. Lund: Studentlitteratur .
38.
McChesney, R., E. Meiksins Wood and J. Bellamy Foster (eds) (1998) Capitalism and the Information Age: The Political Economy of the Global Communication Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press .
39.
Mackay, H. (1995) ‘Theorizing the IT/Society Relationship’, pp. 41-53 in N. Heap, R. Thomas, G. Einon, R. Mason and H. Mackay (eds) Information Technology and Society: A Reader. London: Sage .
40.
Mackay, H. (1997) ‘Consuming Communication Technologies at Home’, pp. 259-308 in H. Mackay (ed.) Consumption and Everyday Life. London: Sage and Open University Press .
41.
Mambrey, P., H.-P. Neuman and K. Sieverdingbeck (1999) ‘Bridging the Gap between Parliament and the Citizen: The Internet Services of the German Bundestag’, pp. 118-130 in S. Coleman,J. Taylor and W. van de Donk (eds) Parliament in the Age of the Internet. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government .
42.
Marshall, T.H. (1992) Citizenship and Social Class. London: Pluto Press .(Orig. pub. 1950.)
43.
Miller, D. (2000) Citizenship and National Identity. Cambridge: Polity Press .
44.
Mitra, A. (1997) ‘Virtual Commonality: Looking for India on the Internet’, pp. 55-79 in S.G. Jones (ed.) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London: Sage .
45.
Mouffe, C. (ed.) (1992) Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community. London: Verso .
46.
Mulder, B. (1999) ‘Parliamentary Futures: Re-Presenting the Issue’, pp. 191-204 in S. Coleman, J. Taylor and W. van de Donk (eds) Parliament in the Age of the Internet. Oxford: Oxford University Press and the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government .
47.
Murdock, G., P. Hartmann and P. Grey (1994) ‘Contextualizing Home Computing: Resources and Practices’, pp. 146-160 in R. Silverstone and E. Hirsch (eds) Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. London: Routledge .
48.
Nelander, S., I. Goding and O. Ivarsen (2002) Dator, klass, kön och ålder [Computers, Class, Gender, and Age]. Stockholm: LO .
Ohlin, T. (1998) Samhällsdialogen: kontakter mellan medborgare och samhälle; nya former för politiskt deltagande [The Societal Dialogue: Contact between Citizens and Government: New Forms of Political Participation], KFB-Rapport 1998: 6. Stockholm: Fritze .
52.
Olsson, T. (2002) ‘Mycket väsen om ingenting: hur datorn och internet undgår att formas till medborgarens tekniker’ [Much Ado About Nothing: How the Computer and the Internet Missed their Plight as Citizens’ Tools], PhD thesis, Uppsala University.
53.
Poster, M. (1995) The Second Media Age. Cambridge: Polity Press .
54.
Poster, M. (1997) ‘Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere’, pp. 201-218 in D. Porter (ed.) Internet Culture. London: Routledge .
55.
Raab, C., C. Bellamy, J. Taylor, W. Dutton and M. Peltu (1996) ‘The Information Polity: Electronic Democracy, Privacy, and Surveillance’, pp. 283-299 in W.H. Dutton (ed.) Information and Communication Technologies: Visions and Realities. Oxford: Oxford University Press .
56.
Ranerup, A. (2000) ‘On-Line Forums as an Arena for Political Discussions’, pp. 209-223 in T. Ishida and K. Isbister (eds) Digital Cities: Technologies, Experiences, and Future Perspectives. Berlin: Springer .
57.
Rheingold, H. (1999) ‘Extract from The Virtual Community’, pp. 15-31 in H. Mackay and T. O’Sullivan (eds) The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation. London: Sage and Open University Press .
58.
Sassi, S. (2001) ‘The Transformation of the Public Sphere?’, pp. 89-108 in B. Axford and R. Huggins (eds) New Media and Politics. London: Sage .
59.
Schiller, D. (1999) Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press .
60.
Schmitz, J. (1997) ‘Structural Relations, Electronic Media, and Social Change: The Public Electronic Network and the Homeless’, pp. 80-101 in S.G. Jones (ed.) Virtual Culture: Identity and Communication in Cybersociety. London: Sage .
61.
Silverstone, R. (1991) ‘From Audiences to Consumers: The Household and the Consumption of Communication and Information Technologies’ , European Journal of Communication6: 135-154 .
62.
Silverstone, R. (1994) Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge .
63.
Slevin, J. (2000) The Internet and Society. Cambridge: Polity Press .
64.
Smith, M. and P. Kollock (eds) (1999) Communities in Cyberspace. London: Routledge .
65.
Stevenson, N. (ed.) (2000) Culture and Citizenship. London: Sage .
66.
Street, J. (1999) ‘Remote Control? Politics, Technology and ‘Electronic Democracy’, pp. 385-397 in H. Mackay and T. O’Sullivan (eds) The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation. London: Sage and Open University Press .
67.
Sussman, G. (1997) Communication, Technology and Politics in the Information Age. London: Sage .
68.
Tsagarousianou, R., D. Tambini and C. Bryan (eds) (1998) Cyberdemocracy: Technology, Cities and Civic Networks. London: Routledge .
69.
Van Dijk, J.(2000) ‘Widening Information Gaps and Policies of Prevention’, pp. 166-183 in K. Hacker and J. van Dijk (eds) Digital Democracy: Issues of Theory and Practice. London: Sage .
70.
Walzer, M. (1995) ‘The Civil Society Argument’, pp. 175-207 in R. Beiner (ed.) Theorizing Citizenship. Albany, NY: SUNY Press .
71.
Wilhelm, A.G. (2000) Democracy in the Digital Age: Challenges to Political Life in Cyberspace. London: Routledge .
72.
Williams, R. (1992) Television: Technology and Cultural Form, 2nd edn, ed. E. Williams. London: Routledge .
