New Forms Of Civic Engagement Research Articles

European citizenship and digitalization: A new roadmap for interconnection

EU citizenship is strongly linked to digital transformations, as digitalisation redefines how citizens engage, communicate and participate within the EU. Digital advancements have transformed the European public sphere and are radically changing democratic deliberation by enhancing access to information, facilitating transnational dialogue and fostering new forms of civic engagement. E-governance and digital public services streamline administrative processes, making it more convenient for citizens to access various services. Digitalisation of interaction among EUs’ citizens can support their mobility and connectivity. However, rapid digital advancement also brings challenges of evolving multifaced EU identity in fast paced, post-truth, increasingly complex social system like the EU.The main goal of this article is to show the relevance of postmodern theories for the creation of a theoretical framework for digital European citizenship and the digital European public sphere. By embracing complexity, encouraging critical reflexion and prioritizing adaptability, a postmodern theoretical framework can enhance our understanding of the challenges and opportunities presented by digital technologies in the EU context, ultimately contributing to more inclusive, democratic and responsive forms of digital citizenship and public discourse.However, as this article shows, the synthesis of a postmodern perspective and digital technologies can also bring its own challenges, such as fragmentation, epistemological uncertainty or ethical dilemmas. Addressing these challenges requires critical engagement with both postmodern theories and digital technologies, acknowledging their complexities and contradictions while striving to promote ethical and inclusive uses of digital technology that empower EU citizens.

Francophone Muslim intellectuals, Islamic associational life and religious authority in Burkina Faso

AbstractThe attention paid to the security threats hanging over Burkina Faso, while legitimate, has overshadowed the underlying transformations in Islamic associational life since the fall of President Blaise Compaoré in October 2014. This major political upheaval had a significant impact on the participation of Muslims in socio-political debates, the relations between generations and, more widely, the bases upon which religious authority is claimed. This article analyses the competition for religious leadership between Islamic actors in the public sphere in Burkina Faso by focusing mainly on francophone ‘Muslim intellectuals’. First, the study shows the gap between the gerontocracy at the helm of the main Islamic associations and the Burkinabe youth, which widened throughout the 1990s and 2000s and came strongly to the fore after the popular uprising of October 2014. Second, taking advantage of the space left vacant by traditional community leaders during the transition process, some young francophone ‘Muslim intellectuals’ actively sought to portray themselves as the vehicles of a ‘civil Islam’ and strove to promote new forms of civic engagement through religion. Other Muslim organizations have also tried to take advantage of the new political context to strengthen their presence in the socio-political arena.

The Alternative Epistemologies of Data Activism

Abstract As datafication progressively invades all spheres of contemporary society, citizens grow increasingly aware of the critical role of information as the new fabric of social life. This awareness triggers new forms of civic engagement and political action that we term “data activism”. Data activism indicates the range of sociotechnical practices that interrogate the fundamental paradigm shift brought about by datafication. Combining Science and Technology Studies with Social Movement Studies, this theoretical article offers a foretaste of a research agenda on data activism. It foregrounds democratic agency vis-à-vis datafication, and unites under the same label ways of affirmative engagement with data (“proactive data activism”, e. g. databased advocacy) and tactics of resistance to massive data collection (“reactive data activism”, e. g. encryption practices), understood as a continuum along which activists position and reposition themselves and their tactics. The article argues that data activism supports the emergence of novel epistemic cultures within the realm of civil society, making sense of data as a way of knowing the world and turning it into a point of intervention and generation of data countercultures. It offers the notion of data activism as a heuristic tool for the study of new forms of political participation and civil engagement in the age of datafication, and explores data activism as an evolving theoretical construct susceptible to contestation and revision.

Clashing Activisms: International Human Rights Organizations and Unruly Politics

In this article we address the complex relation between international human rights organizations and unruly activism. We take the Pussy Riot case as a point of departure to illustrate that the institutionalized methods of international human rights organizations can clash with the more radical agenda and action repertoires of unruly groups and movements. These new forms of civic engagement are situated in a larger context of discontent with globalizing economic and political forces and some broader challenges for human rights. We analyse these unconventional and sometimes violent activisms through a lens of unruly politics, arguing that they denote a fundamental shift in the type of engagement we know of traditional NGOs. We discuss how such activisms pose a particular challenge for international human rights organizations, which can be seen as too hierarchal, elitist, moderate and with too minimalist an agenda to achieve the desired system change. Unruly politics differ from the institutionalized politics of human rights organizations with regard to their understanding of social change, their modes of organization, and their action repertoires. We conclude the article by arguing that the new civic politics with an unruly character and the more traditional human rights advocacy are both valuable and do not need to be reconciled. We sketch three possible ways that international human rights organizations can remain relevant by playing roles which are different from, but complementary to, those of unruly agents, claiming that antagonism can even be fruitful for a process of progressive social change.

Spanish-language immigrant media in Miami-Dade County, Florida: Discursive arenas for transnational civil societies

New discursive arenas among transnational communities are transforming communication processes both within and beyond national boundaries. Focusing on one of the most diverse and populous Spanish-speaking populations in the United States, we explore five community media publications in Miami-Dade County, Florida, created by and for several distinct Latin American immigrant communities. Through content analysis, we explore articulations of immigration and the environment, issues that are global in nature, but experienced locally. By asking how immigrant media cover environment and immigration, whether or not coverage reflects transnational dimensions, and what this implies for new forms of civic engagement and governance, the results provide insight into the new discursive arenas flowing across borders, critical implications for notions of citizenship, as well as conceptualizations of public opinion legitimacy and efficacy.

Spanish-language immigrant media in Miami-Dade County, Florida: Discursive arenas for transnational civil societies

New discursive arenas among transnational communities are transforming communication processes both within and beyond national boundaries. Focusing on one of the most diverse and populous Spanish-speaking populations in the United States, we explore five community media publications in Miami-Dade County, Florida, created by and for several distinct Latin American immigrant communities. Through content analysis, we explore articulations of immigration and the environment, issues that are global in nature, but experienced locally. By asking how immigrant media cover environment and immigration, whether or not coverage reflects transnational dimensions, and what this implies for new forms of civic engagement and governance, the results provide insight into the new discursive arenas flowing across borders, critical implications for notions of citizenship, as well as conceptualizations of public opinion legitimacy and efficacy.

La partecipazione politica fra crisi dei partiti e democrazia partecipativa

This article proposes an analysis of the relationships amongst the crisis of political parties, the insurgence of phenomena such as the cognitive mobilization and the role of participatory and deliberative democracy as frame for new forms of civic engagement. The authors also focus over the transformation of the public sphere and the need for scholars and politicians to go beyond a normative conception of the mediatised public space. The rising of new forms of political parties (cartel party, presidentialized party, franchise party) is strongly connected with the partisan dealignment, the crisis of the liberal representative democracy and the deep transformation of the public sphere; in the same time, new forms of active citizenship and civic engagement can replace and/or support the political parties. The participatory and deliberative democracy challenges the old politics and can represent both a tool and a frame for strengthening the new forms of political participation.

Let’s play transformations! Performative methods for sustainability

Coping with global environmental change demands new forms of civic engagement and interaction able to transform passive audiences attending to the drama of unsustainability into committed actors for sustainability. This entails linking diverse sources of scientific knowledge with personal experiences, emotion and ethical judgments. In this paper, we assess the potential as well as the limitations of innovative theatre-based participatory tools and methods aimed at supporting sustainability learning and agent transformation. To this aim, we first review a series of experiences using theatrical performance and introduce the notion of performative methods. Second, we assess to what extent these new approaches can be of relevance in environmental action research and sustainability science, practice and learning. Finally, we list a series of key research questions to further guide methodological innovation in this promising area of sustainability science and practice. Our findings show a growing and successful use of such methodologies worldwide, both in academia and in implementation-oriented approaches. An increasing number of topics and complexity is being embraced by these methods, offering a fertile ground for innovation in participatory sustainability science.

DIY citizenship amongst young Muslims: experiences of the ‘ordinary’

Debates abound about low levels of engagement in mainstream civic life on the part of young Muslims from immigrant backgrounds living in non-Muslim majority countries. This paper investigates the emergent types of civic practice enacted by first or second generation Australian youth of major Muslim migrant communities, and suggests that in order to better understand the commonly identified problem of low levels of civic participation amongst this group it is necessary to situate the debate in broader conceptual frameworks regarding the shift towards ‘do-it-yourself’ citizenship on the part of the current generation. The paper argues for a focus on practices of youth cultural production and consumption, civic networks in everyday spaces, and work on the self as new forms of civic engagement, drawing on qualitative research with 80 young Muslims, who are outside both radical and mainstream formal associational practice.

Japan's Long Environmental Sixties and the Birth of a Green Leviathan

Is the ‘1960s' a useful concept for understanding postwar Japanese history and, if so, what kinds of changes resulted and how might we chronologize the period? This article proposes the idea of a ‘long environmental sixties’ in Japan stretching from around 1959 to 1973. The article argues that this period marked important milestones in environmental protest, public opinion, and legislation. By the early 1970s Japan had addressed many of its most pressing industrial pollution problems, in the process placating protest, compensating victims, and establishing an environmental leviathan staffed by hundreds of bureaucrats nationwide. Japan's sixties were a moment of social upheaval, transformation, and new aspirations but, as this article shows, the country's long environmental sixties bequeathed a complex legacy, combining new forms of civic engagement with administrative programs and corporate initiatives to carefully manage the human–environment nexus.

Contextualising the self and social change making: an evaluation of the Young Social Pioneers program

This article presents the findings of an evaluation of an innovative Australian social entrepreneurship and leadership program to highlight some of the challenges young social change makers face as they attempt to influence change in their local, national and international environments. Through an investigation of an innovative Australian social entrepreneurship program, this article demonstrates how reflexive, communicative and participatory practices position young people at the forefront of new forms of civic engagement and that there are certain needs relating to the development of self and community which must to be addressed in order that these young social actors can fulfil their civic aspirations. The findings of the evaluation reported here demonstrate that if social entrepreneur programs are to be successful in providing a service to young people, they need to foster the creation of environments characterised by collectivism, collaboration and opportunities for self development while providing practical solutions to common barriers faced by social entrepreneurs

Political Activism as Part of a Broader Civic Engagement

This article examines the impact of a Florida health care union’s political activities on broader member “civic engagement.” Its grassroots political approach (membership education, leadership development, mobilizational structures, and capacity) and a broad “public interest” framing of goals has stimulated new forms of civic engagement by its volunteer leaders and members. Alternative explanations of its success in terms of membership demographics and method of conducting political activities is conducted, with the latter providing most of the explanation. This approach to politics is commended to the labor movement at large, both for its effectiveness and its legitimizing role in U.S. public opinion.

Democratic phoenix: reinventing political activism

Conventional wisdom suggests that citizens in many countries have become disengaged from the traditional channels of political participation. Commentators highlight warning signs including sagging electoral turnout, rising anti-party sentiment, and the decay of civic organizations. But are these concerns justified? This book, first published in 2002, compares systematic evidence for electoral turnout, party membership, and civic activism in countries around the world and suggests good reasons to question assumptions of decline. Not only is the obituary for older forms of political activism premature, but new forms of civic engagement may have emerged in modern societies to supplement traditional modes. The process of societal modernization and rising levels of human capital are primarily responsible, although participation is also explained by the structure of the state, the role of agencies, and social inequalities.

Where Are We Now? Contours of the Internet in Canada

The rise of a global Internet poses a diversity of opportunities and challenges for Canadians. Predictably it also elicits rhetorical excess: that the Net will annihilate the barriers of geography and historical circumstance, or that the Net’s borderless architecture manifestly plays into the hands of global actors; that the messaging capabilities of new media will make the Internet a seamless part of enhanced social life, or that it marks the rise of new forms of deception and social alienation; that the Web supports new forms of civic engagement allowing us to talk with anyone anywhere, or that it will privatize the public sphere, removing us further from our traditions of public participation. Such rhetorical dualisms, Steven Woolgar (1999) says, help to explain why as consumers and users we are so frequently confused and disappointed by sociotechnical change. Canadian communication researchers and educators should welcome the new communicational environment and the opportunity to play a role in its public understanding and further development. Recent data collected through a variety of national and international research projects is giving us a better sense of the trend lines in Internet development. We are beginning to get some purchase on the forces at work in shaping the Internet, the players and the backstage machinery, and how these compare and contrast across geographical and historical circumstances. A growing body of evidence on public concerns gives us some sense of what might undermine the Internet’s broad base of support. Finally, there are provisional optics for looking at some of the content characteristics of the Internet, data that profile actual user activity indicate to some extent the scope and scale of content flows and audiences. Reflective practitioners are beginning to make us aware that research on human subjects has a complex ethical relationship to the virtual, especially as case-based studies and participant inquiries give us some feel for how the Net looks from the inside out. Two complementary types of data bookend current quantitative research, on which the present meta-analysis is based: media use surveys, specifically focused on the Internet, and Internet audience research, which generally produces ranking scales for the popularity of content categories and site sources. These research