Citizenship and local media in a digital age

Seminar event: Reimagining citizenship for a digital age

We had a very stimulating seminar event on Tuesday at the ippr on Re-imagining citizenship for a digital age, as part of our project.

Some of the discussion was around whether we need to reframe our concepts of citizenship, and whether notions of  "participation" are evolving to match the kinds of participatory activities online, networked environments enable. Any comments are very much welcome.

Speakers included:

• Helen Milner, UfI Executive Director
• Councillor Mary Reid, Vice Chair, International Centre of Excellence for Local e-Democracy (Mary also blogged about the event here.)
• Dr Damian Tambini, Department of Media and Communications, LSE 
• Dr Neil Selwyn, School of Social Science, Cardiff University
• Peter Armstrong, Director, OneWorld International

You can  download or just listen online to the audio of the event, posted here in three parts. Or you can subscribe to our podcast feed to automatically keep up-to-date with more event podcasts. 

Listen to Part 1 of the seminar (mp3):  Helen Milner, Councillor Mary Reid and Dr Damian Tambini (File size: 20.1MB - Duration of audio 50 mins 18 secs)

We had a couple of technical hitches. I am afraid some of Damian's talk was interrupted by some extremely irritating high-pitched interference which sounds as if it was a loose connection, so part one ends rather suddenly I am afraid. We also had a fire alarm, but we have edited that out to save your ears.

Part 2 - Reimagining citizenship for a digital age

Listen to Part 2 of the seminar (mp3):  Dr Neil Selwyn and Peter Armstrong (File size: 13.2MB - Duration of audio 33 mins 04 secs)

Part 3 - Reimagining citizenship for a digital age

Listen to Part 3 of the seminar (mp3):  Questions from the floor and discussion (File size: 24.9MB - Duration of audio 1 hr 02 mins 10 secs)

Digital Citizenship seminar

We have a seminar on the 27th February at 9:30 am which will look at whether we need to change our notion of citizenship, particularly active citizenship, as we move into a digital age.

We have a number of great speakers, including Helen Milner, UfI, Councillor Mary Reid, Damian Tambini from LSE, Neil Selwyn, Cardiff University, and Peter Armstrong from OneWorld.Net.

The seminar will ask:

• does our notion of participation change when considering online environments?
• what external and internal resources do citizens require to participate fully?
• what role can media literacy play in supporting active citizenship?

If you'd like more information, please contact digitalsociety@ippr.org. The event will be at the ippr offices, and we will record it and make it available for download here.

UK Online centres consultation

As part of this project, we're seeking views from a range of stakeholders including UK Online Centre Managers. Here is a list of consultation questions  which we have given the managers an opportunity to comment on.

If you're here to respond to this after seeing the article on the Helpisathand website, please leave your comments in response here, or you can email us on directly on digitalsociety@ippr.org

 

Welcome to the project

Welcome to the Digital Society & Media research team's project blog on Emerging local media and citizenship in a digital society.

This is a six-month Institute for Public Policy Research project supported by the UK's Department of Communities and Local Government and the UK's media regulator, Ofcom.

You can find full details of the project on our official ippr team pages, but this blog will serve as our main conversation hub for the project.

We have a series of seminar events planned, and we shall make podcasts from all the events available here, so please do subscribe to them.