Creating Model Citizens for the Information Age: Canadian Internet Policy as Civilizing Discourse

Abstract

In the late 1990s, the Government of Canada launched a string of initiatives to usher its citizens into the “information age.” Recently, the federal government has announced “mission accomplished” in its pledge to become a “model user” of information technology, recognized around the world as the country most connected to its citizens. This paper interrogates the term “model user” as a marker of the changes occurring to techniques of government in our expanding information society. It proposes that the “model user” represents ways to negotiate the changing relationship between nation, state, and citizen associated with economic restructuring and signals a new civilizing discourse for citizen conduct amid the dynamic flows of information and ideas. Further, the “model user” suggests an emphasis on innovation that is implicated within larger discourses of economic globalization and the premium placed on adaptability and creativity. Finally, this paper makes vivid the connections between the “model user” and emerging discourses of Canada as a “model democracy” and Canadians as “model citizens” within the global context.