Technology Mediated Citizenship: What Can We Learn from Library Practices

Abstract

Advanced digital societies in democratic societies are conceived to be sustained by informed, active and responsible citizens. While internet and information technologies are both hailed for their empowering potential for the citizens to express their civic and political rights, they also pose considerable literacy and usage challenges, and thus can raise exclusionary thresholds for these same aspirations. Digital skills and information literacy as preconditions for tapping into such technology potential, can thus affect the way citizenship is practiced and conceived by the members of society. Based on an extensive field study at Swedish libraries practices with helping and educating clients with a wide diversity of questions relating to digital technologies and e-services, we examine both empirically and conceptually how citizenship is practiced in an advanced digital society, in a universal welfare state. The analysis focused on citizenship practices in daily activities when technologies mediate participation and interaction among the public, civic and market actors. The conclusions contribute to the conceptualization of citizenship act and agency and elaborates on citizenship as a performative process.