Sergio Amadeu da Silveira - Cidadania e Redes Digitais

eng
c i t i z e n s h i p a n d d i g i t a l n e t w o r k s
products importers and exporters. All seems to be designed for the new digital exclusion
to reproduce the old social differences.
In face of this scenario, there are two possible attitudes. First, the path to hypocitizenship,
which means the gradual elimination of the citizen consciousness
through various political dynamics: increase of social control; expansion of informatics
through proprietary standards; hardware, software and communication standards
monopolization; promotion of a merely ludic use of the ICT (including the
expansion of the sector of the consoles and video-games); fomentation of a superficial
and non-engaged use of the virtual social networks etc. In such dynamics, it
is clear that the balance between citizens and centralized institutions would bias in
favor of the institutions.
Second, there is a possible path to hypocitizenship, a deeper exercise of political
participation which we could call digital citizenship, and that would alienate us from
the nihilist and ascetic attitude which is inevitable in the previous dynamics. It is a
concept based on the following elements:
• Social appropriation of technology, which supposes its use for purposes not
only of technical excellence, but also of social relevance;
• The conscious use of the ICT impact on democracy, advancing from its current
representative forms to new forms of participative democracy;
• The expansion of a fourth generation of human rights, which would include
universal access to informatics, the diffusion of ideas and creeds with no censorship
nor boundaries and through the networks; the right to have a voice in
the design of technologies affecting our lives, as well as permanent access to
cyberspace by means of open networks, and to an open spectrum;
• Promotion of digital inclusion policies, understanding inclusion not only as
the mere access and purchase of informatics products and services, but as the
process creating a collective intelligence that is a strategic resource to insert a
community or a country in a globalized environment;
• Creative development of electronic governance services approximating the
public matters’ management to the citizens;
• Defense of the concept of procommons (common assets), conserving spaces
of human development which management is not subject to the laws of the
market and to the arbitration of speculators;
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