Sociology and Criminology

Digital Activism and Citizenship in Datafied Societies

Module code: L3131A
Level 6
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Seminar
Assessment modes: Essay

How do citizens today use digital technologies to mobilise struggles for social justice?

How have digital networks reconfigured the structure of social movements?

Can digital activism be effective means for social change or a form of slacktivism?

Does it reinforce neoliberal logics of communicative capitalism?

We’ll address these questions by introducing you to the concept of digital citizenship. This is a way of conceptualising citizenship as citizen empowerment mediated through digital acts: how citizens reassert their position in relation to the state in struggles for recognition of different identities, extension of rights and new ideas of responsibility through the use of digital technologies and platforms. Rather than a formal status, digital citizenship involves the informal, performative and participatory nature of citizenship. It examines the relation between the digital and the political as it takes shape within the bottom-up networks of civil society.

This module will give you:

  • an advanced understanding of the broad topics, perspectives and debates within the field of digital citizenship
  • a critical assessment of the prospects for democratisation through digital acts within the context of economic and political forces that attempt to subvert it. This ranges from processes of datafication and surveillance capitalism, to information gatekeeping and networked authoritarianism.

Module learning outcomes

  • Develop a critical awareness of the different ways in which citizenship has been conceptualised within sociological scholarship.
  • Demonstrate knowledge and a critical appreciation of competing theories and empirical research on digital citizenship.
  • Demonstrate the ability to apply theories of digital citizenship to contemporary empirical cases across local, national and transnational levels.
  • Identify and critically evaluate the cultural, political and economic challenges facing expressions of digital citizenship today.