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Article
Publication date: 15 January 2020

Estelle Clements

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the philosophy of information, specifically the work of Luciano Floridi, to argue that digital civics must fully comprehend the…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to draw on the philosophy of information, specifically the work of Luciano Floridi, to argue that digital civics must fully comprehend the implications of the digital environment, and consequently an informational ontology, to deliver to students an education that will prepare them for full participation as citizens in the infosphere.

Design/methodology/approach

Introducing this philosophy for use in education, the research discusses the ethical implications of ontological change in the digital age; informational organisms and their interconnectivity; and concepts of agency, both organic and artificial in digitally mediated civic interactions and civic education.

Findings

With the provision of a structural framework rooted in the philosophy of information, robust mechanisms for civics initiatives can be enacted.

Originality/value

The paper allows policy makers and practitioners to formulate healthy responses to digital age challenges in civics and civics education.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 76 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 January 2022

Stephen C. Rea

This paper aims to offer practical guidance on teaching about digital extremism – defined here as the intersection of digital disinformation campaigns with political extremism …

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to offer practical guidance on teaching about digital extremism – defined here as the intersection of digital disinformation campaigns with political extremism – by highlighting four pedagogical challenges: the danger of unintentionally “redpilling” students; the slippery slope to false equivalency and “bothsidesism” in turbulent partisan waters; the difficulty of separating empirical analyses from prescriptive debates circulating in popular media; and the trouble of getting students to understand digital extremism as a sociotechnical problem rather than as a social-or-technical problem. The conclusion proposes opportunities for educators to integrate practical approaches to confronting digital extremism with digital civics curricula.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reviews pedagogical challenges and outlines a curricular program for teaching about digital extremism drawn from the author’s experience designing undergraduate courses and open teaching modules between 2016 and 2021.

Findings

Educators should shift focus from the substance of digital extremism to its tools – social media platforms’ surveillance and data-gathering methods, advertising technologies and monetized user-generated content, personalized recommendation algorithms and media manipulation strategies that amplify some narratives while suppressing others – and the media and political institutions that benefit most from it. Proposed lessons include: how digital extremists manipulate social media metadata; engagement with data creation and targeting practices; and analysis of information production, circulation and consumption exploring media manipulation tools and their effects.

Originality/value

This paper’s added values are the insights and practical recommendations for undergraduate educators teaching on a topic of urgent contemporary concern: digital extremism.

Details

Information and Learning Sciences, vol. 123 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-5348

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 11 May 2021

Vishalache Balakrishnan

To showcase the importance of digital citizenship in the current era. This article compares the nine features of digital citizen provided by Ribble and Bailey (2007) with a case…

Abstract

Purpose

To showcase the importance of digital citizenship in the current era. This article compares the nine features of digital citizen provided by Ribble and Bailey (2007) with a case study conducted in a multicultural setting and identifies the tensions between ethics, religion and cultural norms in that environment.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study approach has been used in this research. Why case study? Because it is unique and provides in-depth, unique and invaluable findings. Case studies researchers have contributed to the development of case study research from diverse disciplines. Historical examples of case studies go back as far as the nineteenth century with the biography of Charles Darwin (Stewart, 2014). The dominance of positivism in science in the late 1940 and 1950s in social science sidelined qualitative approaches such as case studies. Although case study research was often criticized for its inability to support generalizations, and thus, provided limited validity and value as a research design (Merriam, 2009; Stewart, 2014), case study research provides intensive analysis of an issue. A Case study is intrinsic, instrumental and collective (Stake, 1995, 2006). Case study research encourages the detailed enquiry of a unit of analysis within its context.

Findings

Findings show that current society needs to be educated on the nine aspects of digital citizenship. In the current era, changes are so rapid that every now and then, there must be collaboration and cooperation between different agencies to ensure that the tension between religiosity, cultural norms and ethics would be able to find some common ground. With more knowledge and wisdom on human rights, sustainability education and project-based learning in Civics Education, teachers, students, parents and community should often meet to decide on controversial issues and find ways to ensure that each one in society has the knowledge, skills and values for digital citizenship to grow and flourish.

Originality/value

The article is original in nature and has much social impact.

Details

Asian Education and Development Studies, vol. 11 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-3162

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 February 2024

Alexandra Thrall, T. Philip Nichols and Kevin R. Magill

The purpose of this study is to examine how young people imagine civic futures through speculative fiction writing about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The authors…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to examine how young people imagine civic futures through speculative fiction writing about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The authors argue that young people’s speculative fiction writing about AI not only helps make visible the ways they imagine the impacts of emerging technologies and the modes of collective action available for leveraging, resisting or countering them but also the frictions and fissures between the two.

Design/methodology/approach

This practitioner research study used data from student artifacts (speculative fiction stories, prewriting and relevant unit work) as well as classroom fieldnotes. The authors used inductive coding to identify emergent patterns in the ways young people wrote about AI and civics, as well as deductive coding using digital civic ecologies framework.

Findings

The findings of this study spotlight both the breadth of intractable civic concerns that young people associate with AI, as well as the limitations of the civic frameworks for imagining political interventions to these challenges. Importantly, they also indicate that the process of speculative writing itself can help reconcile this disjuncture by opening space to dwell in, rather than resolve, the tensions between “the speculative” and the “civic.”

Practical implications

Teachers might use speculative fiction writing and the digital civic ecologies framework to support students in critically examining possible AI futures and effective civic actions within them.

Originality/value

Speculative fiction writing offers an avenue for students to analyze the growing civic concerns posed by emerging platform technologies like AI.

Details

English Teaching: Practice & Critique, vol. 23 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1175-8708

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 December 2017

Carrie James and Ashley Lee

Digital and social media have arguably altered the civic landscape, creating not only opportunities for civic voice and engagement but also distinct challenges. How do youth who…

Abstract

Digital and social media have arguably altered the civic landscape, creating not only opportunities for civic voice and engagement but also distinct challenges. How do youth who are civically active think about activism and their own civic activities in this landscape? How does their sense of themselves as civic actors – the strength and salience of their civic identities – shape decisions to “speak up” online? In this chapter, we draw on data from interviews with civically active youth to explore connections between their civic identities and uptake of opportunities for voice online. Drawing on data from a follow-up study conducted two years after initial interviews, we also examine reported changes in online expression over time. We find that many – though not all – youth in our study appear to have strong civic identities, as indicated by their self-identification as “activists” and the centrality of voice to their conceptions of activism. We also observe connections between activist identification and online civic expression over time. Youths’ narratives about what informs their online voice decisions further suggest the relevance of forces that have influenced persistence in civic participation (such as life transitions, work, and family demands) in addition to pressures unique to the digital context (including online conflict and surveillance). This qualitative study suggests that strong civic identities may support uptake of, and persistence with, online civic expression and tolerance of related challenges. In the discussion, we consider implications for youth civic development and for the vitality and diversity of the digital civic sphere.

Details

Social Movements and Media
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-098-3

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 18 November 2020

Bridget Harris, Molly Dragiewicz and Delanie Woodlock

Goal 5 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) prioritises gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls. Key to achieving this is addressing…

Abstract

Goal 5 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) prioritises gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls. Key to achieving this is addressing violence against women (VAW; see SDG target 5.2) and, we believe, understanding the role of technology in both enacting and combating VAW. In this chapter, we outline how technology-facilitated VAW threatens women's use of technology and discuss policies and practices of support workers and practitioners that aid safe use of digital media. We consider features of technology-facilitated VAW advocacy which differ from traditional VAW advocacy, using examples from the Global North and South. Information communication technologies (ICTs) are used by VAW advocates in a range of ways; to provide information and education about domestic violence, safe use of technology and negotiating the legal and criminal justice systems; collect evidence about abuse; provide support; and pursue social change. As the capabilities and prevalence of ICT and devices increase and access costs decrease, these channels offer new and innovative opportunities capitalising on the spacelessness, cost-effectiveness and timelessness of media. Nonetheless, technological initiatives are not perfect or failsafe. Throughout the pages that follow, we acknowledge the limitations and challenges of technology-facilitated advocacy, which could hinder application of the SDG.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Crime, Justice and Sustainable Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-355-5

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 18 February 2022

Denise E. Agosto and Shannon M. Oltmann

Abstract

Details

Information and Learning Sciences, vol. 123 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2398-5348

Book part
Publication date: 7 June 2019

Sung-Yueh Perng

Smart city developments have been subjected to technocratic envisioning and neoliberal urban developments. However, there have been attempts to reclaim the right to the city…

Abstract

Smart city developments have been subjected to technocratic envisioning and neoliberal urban developments. However, there have been attempts to reclaim the right to the city through organizing civic initiatives to widen the access to the making of future technologies and cities. This chapter draws on Mouffe’s concept of agonistic relations to explore the diversifying ideals, rhetoric, and practices of hackathon organization to consider how they might cooperate with or contest one another and provide alternative means to technology and city making. The chapter analyzes different ways of organizing hackathons and discusses the opportunities for participants with diverse social backgrounds, knowledges and technical competences to join and work together. By examining the conflictual positions, articulations, and arrangements to widen participation, the chapter suggests that more open, inclusive, and collaborative city-making events might be possible. Further work is needed to examine conflictual hackathon participation practices and other civic initiatives to pursue a more egalitarian smart city.

Details

The Right to the Smart City
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-140-7

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 1 July 2024

Nathan Schneider

The class of technology variously referred to as Web3 or crypto has been heralded as a democratizing force for economics and governance. This chapter argues that, to the extent…

Abstract

The class of technology variously referred to as Web3 or crypto has been heralded as a democratizing force for economics and governance. This chapter argues that, to the extent such hype is justified, it is only partly due to the affordances of the technology itself. Perhaps more important is the amnesia it has induced, as an innovative paradigm whose novelty inclines people to neglect once-stable norms. In both economics and governance, crypto offers opportunities for greater democracy, but following through on them is guaranteed by neither the technology nor the amnesia it invites.

Details

Defining Web3: A Guide to the New Cultural Economy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83549-600-8

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 14 March 2023

Nancy L. Bailey

This qualitative descriptive research study served to clarify sustained social and economic natures of African business innovation and entrepreneurial development leadership. The…

Abstract

This qualitative descriptive research study served to clarify sustained social and economic natures of African business innovation and entrepreneurial development leadership. The research question included interviewed African leader participants (5), “How do you describe your experience in African leadership?” In-depth phone interview responses detailed familiar leadership words and phrases about historic, cultural, and economic environments. African leaders described how they understand, discover, observe, and share perspectives on African leadership experiences for personal hardship, survival, and societal, cultural, physical, and organizational change. Using phenomenological research methods, transcript analysis of interview experience responses integrated common properties. Verbatim transcriptions, and reading, sifting, combining, reducing, and interpreting the data collection resulted in thematic coding and categorizing. Investigation results included interpreted meaning for facilitated interactions in African leadership descriptions. Study conclusions highlighted many, varied, and unusual pathways for African leadership, rather than a single model. Sensitivities to participative, divergent, and non-linear thinking characterized transformational African leadership styles (Green, 2014). Possible research implications contributed to future work, connecting the study findings with Network Theory.

Details

African Leadership: Powerful Paradigms for the 21st Century
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-046-8

Keywords

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