Citizenship in the Age of the Internet

Abstract

New information and communication technologies (ICTs) have allowed for changes in media content and in practices of media reception. How these changes have impacted on practices of citizenship, is the key question for this article. It starts by showing how notions of citizenship are closely related to public opinion formation, which, in turn is felt to be nurtured by journalism. The demise in newspaper readership is in that regard a worrying phenomenon. By first looking more closely at how the news itself has changed (the inclusion of vox pop segments; the wide use of polls) and by then turning to how practices of representing ordinary people point to the possibility of more inclusive notions of citizenship, the article proposes ‘cultural’ citizenship as a sensitizing concept. As ICTs are most visibly embodied by the Internet, a number of examples are discussed from this perspective. The article concludes that ICTs do not necessarily produce new citizens but that they do provide for new and important citizenship practices.