Digital Citizenship – A Review of the Academic Literature

In: Der moderne Staat: dms ; Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management, Band 14, Heft 1-2021, S. 24-42

Abstract

When digital technologies become a part of everyday life in most parts of society, it changes the way we work, organize, communicate, and make relations. It also changes the relationship between the state and its citizens – a relationship usually conceptualized as citizenship. To capture this transformation, a new concept of digital citizenship has emerged. The overall purpose of this paper is to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge about how citizenship is transformed into digital citizenship through a systematic review of the academic literature on the concept of digital citizenship. The literature review identifies four streams of literature in the academic landscape of digital citizenship, and by a content analysis, it outlines the many dimensions and facets of digital citizenship. In this way, the literature review offers a comprehensive picture of both the impacts of the digital transformation on citizenship and the concept within the academic debate.