Abstract
‘What does it mean, today, to be citizens in the globalised world of the Internet age?’ (p. ix), Luigi Ceccarini asks in a punchy “Introduction” to his book The Digital Citizen(ship) – Politics and Democracy in the Networked Society.
This is not a rhetorical question. It warrants a complex discussion, and Ceccarini, Professor of Politics and Head of the School of Political and Social Studies at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy, begins answering it by immersing his reader into a pool of complex specialist terminology. Some concepts, finetuned to reflect recent changes in society, like ‘renewed media ecosystem’ (p. ix) or ‘generational turnover’ (p. ix) can be intuitively grasped. The meaning of others, such as ‘post-ideological practices’ (p. ix) and ‘neo-intermediation’ (p. ix) require an explanation, but it is not immediately given.
However, the meanings of all concepts become clarified later in the text. For example, the reader learns that a citizen's ‘post-ideological’ position reflects the position of digital natives who are not confined to following a particular ideology and whose roles as citizens have shifted from being dutiful to being self-actualising (p. 19). Likewise, the term ‘neo-intermediation’ is shown to be the new form of civil participation such as, for example, the ‘“immediate” democracy’ (p. 84) actualised by means of a referendum, ‘e-democracy’ (p. 84) and ‘e-participation’ (p. 5).
Throughout his book, Ceccarini critically examines the contemporary media environment, linking the concept of citizenship to that of democracy and treating the latter as a complex time-sensitive phenomenon that changes and evolves throughout history. Accordingly, in Chapter 1, ‘In the background’, the author examines the category of citizenship as ‘a progressive form of inclusion of the individual in a collective dimension’ (p. 4) emphasising that today, ‘citizenship appears as a diversified interweaving of formulas of inclusion, of active participation, of multiple identities and motivations’ (p. 4). The processes of widening participation also include the emergence of the phenomenon of ‘audience democracy’ (p. 11), whereby political leaders connect with citizens – ‘spectators’ (p. 11) – via mass communication tools.
Chapter 2, ‘Citizenship, identity and political community’ begins by Ceccarini stating that ‘[c]itizenship is a polysemic concept’ (p. 38) that can be viewed from juridical, cultural and identity-making perspectives. Accordingly, democratic citizenship (essentially based on citizens’ ability to influence their governments through the vote) involves the complex dynamic of participation, rights, and the person's sense of belonging, as well as his or her duties. In the digital era, citizenship has been transformed, and the citizen – the voter – has become ‘individualised’ (p. 68), whereby ‘individual identity counts more than the wider and collective social identity’, as demonstrated in Chapter 3, ‘Citizens: dealigned and critical’ (p. 69). In line with this tendency, researchers detect ‘the decline in electoral participation and party membership’ (p. 73) on the one hand, and citizens’ mobilisation to support a specific cause, on the other.
At this point the author introduces the concept of a critical citizen. A critical citizen is someone who does not explicitly support political institutions but shows a critical attitude towards them. Developing this theme in Chapter 4, ‘Participation and (post)democracy’, Ceccarini, following Flinders, maintains that in Western democracies, ‘[d]emocratic systems arouse in the own citizens a sentiment of deep dissatisfaction with regard to concrete functioning and the quality of the political processes’ (p. 92). Their dissatisfaction manifested as distrust calls for citizens to be vigilant of power institutions and actors to prevent potential despotism and tyranny. By contributing to ‘[t]he progressive differentiation of the modes of expression’ (p. 101), digital technologies create possibilities for ‘more articulate, fluid and fragmented’ (p. 101) interactions that affect the world of politics. Importantly, this makes citizens’ participatory actions more affordable, and as a result, ‘[t]he democracy of post-modern society is in itself more inclusive than its predecessor’ (p. 101).
The development of participatory democracy, as detailed in Chapter 5, ‘“Monitoria” and responsibility’, calls for the revision of rules, as well as representative and procedural mechanisms of public institutions. The author advocates for ‘counter-democracy’ (p. 106) as an outcome of this revision. This may seem counter-intuitive, but Ceccarini explains that by counter-democracy he means the reinforcement of structural distrust in politicians. In the author's own words, ‘the term refers to a political form that reinforces and offers support for representative democracy’ (p. 106), whereby ‘[t]he democracy of “organising distrust” becomes a complement to the democracy of electoral legitimacy’ (p. 106).
The scope of counter-democracy, as usefully presented in Figure 5.1 on page 107, covers the functions of ‘oversight’, ‘obstruction’ and ‘judgement’, where people function as ‘watchdog’, ‘veto-wielders’ and ‘judges’, respectively (p. 107). Concrete actions that actualise these functions range from vigilance and denunciation to petition campaigns and activism, and also include formal judiciary service. The role of the internet in the evolution of societal engagement is crucial, as the former has essentially ‘proto-political’ (p. 133) potential to facilitate citizens’ engagement, as explained in Chapter 6, ‘Going beyond Mediation’. The internet allows citizens to cross borders between political spaces and participate in the networked society as individuals, for example, as influencers or bloggers.
Overall, the societal changes examined in the book amount to the transformation of a citizen from being a member of a passive audience to someone who takes on a more active role in political processes. In Chapter 7, ‘Conclusions’, Ceccarini rounds up his argument by adding that this equates to the evolution of the citizen who now has ‘a higher degree of attention and distrust’ (p. 161) than before.
Ceccarini's tightly argued book is convincing in proving that private individuals have a much greater opportunity to be involved in the political sphere and make themselves heard than ever before. However, how can a citizen be sure that he or she is not misinformed and acts to promote a just cause or his or her interests rather than unwittingly supporting an unjust cause or acting against his or her interests?
This is a serious issue. Indeed, in the digital era, not just citizen participation can be more effective, but propaganda can be as well. Ceccarini admits that and confirms that propaganda relies on fake accounts, bots and trolls, ‘on automation and platform manipulation and gives the illusion of a large-scale consensus towards a specific issue with the aim of influencing public opinion’ (p. 26). So, the new citizens’ ‘monitoring engagement’ (p. 162), backed by online accessibility of information, facilitates people's ‘cognitive mobilisation’ and much greater involvement in the life of politics than ever before, but the risk of supporting the wrong cause places a greater responsibility on a digital citizen.
To withstand propaganda, the digital citizen needs to have the competence to deal with information. Thus, the idea of an evolved citizen also reinforces an ideal image of the good citizen as an ‘omni-competent’ (p. 161) member of the public. Regrettably, however, Ceccarini admits that ‘[t]here is no real possibility of being such’ (p. 79), at least for a human being.
Can digital technology provide the solution and compensate for a human being's limitations? For example, can artificial intelligence examine appearing information and help the digital citizen avoid being manipulated into accepting non-reliable information as true?
If, in search for an answer to this question, the reader turns to Artificial Intelligence and the Media: Reconsidering Rights and Responsibilities, he or she will be reassured that AI algorithms, which are been used to collect and analyse data (p. 15), are ‘increasingly used for detecting fake news, fact-checking, image verification, and video authentication’ (19).
In this context, Mark R. Leiser's comprehensive explanation of AI verification process is encouraging: A natural language processing engine can go through the subject of a story along with the headline, main body text, and the geo-location. Further, AI will find out if other sites are reporting the same facts. In this way, the facts are weighed against reputed media sources (p. 19)
Leiser also explains the basics of keyword analytics used to identify fake news headlines, making it clear, however, that the discussion of how AI could be used to detect more sophisticated forms of misinformation or the misuse of information, is oriented to the future, because AI is not at the stage when it can, for example, flag unverifiable or intentionally fabricated content.
Also, as well as having technical limitations, AI cannot protect the public from being manipulated by disinformation, as this is not a straightforward matter from a legal point of view.
In the same book, Anette Alén-Savikko explores the role of AI in political processes in Chapter 2, ‘Transparency in algorithmic journalism: from ethics to law and back’, where she focuses on transparency linking it to ‘democracy, public discussion and accountability’ (p. 36). Contrasting transparency with publicity, the co-editor of the book and the author of the chapter emphasizes that ‘[i]deally, the method of transparency involves bringing conflicts into the open, making issues visible, and enabling discussion and debate’ (p. 37). To ensure full accountability, transparency, in its ideal form, should be complete, but ‘the current data economy, powered by AI, undeniably consists of several elements that point towards invisibility rather than visibility’ (p. 38). Alén-Savikko here refers to data protection laws, as well as software and trade secrets that algorithmic tools protect.
Earlier in the book, in Chapter 1, ‘Bias, journalistic endeavours, and the risks of artificial intelligence’, Leiser outlines the role of AI as ‘machine-learning systems that analyse structured data to infer the probability on an outcome’ (p. 8), ‘are perceived to be replacing humans’ (p. 8) and are capable of ‘personalizing, recommending, fact-checking, labelling, and translating vast arrays of user-generated and viral content’ (p. 8). These capabilities come close to omniscience, which could be beneficial for internet users, but Leiser maintains that, at least when it comes to customer recommendations, AI systems ‘in reality boost advertising revenue, and can lead to filter bubbles that reinforce narrow and or inaccurate viewpoints’ (p. 9).
Päivi Korpisaari, referring to a bias in disseminating information, in Chapter 3, ‘The journalistic exemption in personal data protection’, notes that ‘the right to freedom of expression protects not only the right to disseminate information but also the right to receive information. Every time we limit the right to disseminate information, we also limit the right to receive it’ (p. 69). Korpisaari reminds that the press in a democratic society is responsible for imparting information and ideas and disseminating information.
In line with these concerns, Philip M. Napoli and Fabienne Graf, in Chapter 4, ‘Social media platforms as public trustees: an approach to the disinformation problem’, draw the readers’ attention to social media companies’ ‘responsibilities to the algorithmic dissemination of disinformation on their platforms’ (p. 93). Legal obligations in this sphere are evolving, and are different in different countries. Focusing on the United States, the authors draw on research exploring how news media and government officials facilitate ‘the production and flow of disinformation’ (p. 93). In particular, disinformation often originates in social media and feeds into mainstream news media, but ‘from a regulation and policy standpoint, the federal government in the USA has done virtually nothing to confront the social media disinformation problem’ (p. 94), Napoli and Graf confirm, scrutinizing several pieces of legislation and ‘federal inaction on the disinformation front’ (p. 95). Following R. N. Spicer and G.E. White, the authors reveal that First Amendment protections cover false speech, even if it is intentionally false, and this is particularly relevant to political false speech.
As Napoli and Graf explain, First Amendment theory has seldom grappled with the issue of truth versus falsity […] Rather, traditional thinking about the First Amendment assumes that, in a robust speech environment, individuals will have access to – and will consider – all of the relevant information necessary to distinguish truth from falsity (p. 95).
As a result, in order to prevent conditions for government suppression of truthful speech, falsity also ‘receives a substantial amount of protection’ (p. 95).
As an illustration of this, Philip M. Napoli and Fabienne Graf use the ‘United States v Alvarez’ Supreme Court landmark case. According to the case synopsis, the defendant (Mr Alvarez) publicly lied about having received the Congressional Medal of Honor in order to gain respect. This was a violation of the Stolen Valor Act, but the Court concluded that a statement's falsity is not enough, by itself, to exclude speech from First Amendment protection. Accordingly, the Court declared the Stolen Valor Act unconstitutional. Importantly, ‘the Court refused to place intentional false speech designed to misinform and manipulate voters (a fair characterization of Alvarez's falsity) within [the] collection of speech categories eligible for content-based restrictions’ (pp. 95–96).
Napoli and Graf note that this decision was reached 8 years ago, and now the health of American democracy ‘strain[s] under the weight of widespread political disinformation’ (p. 96). Moreover, [T]he most ironic aspect of the current moment, in which the disinformation ecosystem is operating so vigorously in … elections, public health, and race relations, is the fact that the focus of many policymakers has been on altering policies pertaining to social media platforms in ways that would actually facilitate the dissemination of more, rather than less, disinformation (p. 96).
The remaining chapters of Artificial Intelligence and the Media examine various aspects of this problem addressing, among other themes, the issue of freedom of expression and censorship; public trust and content moderation on the internet; social media companies’ commercial interests and public duty.
As Catalina Goanta and Gerasimos Spanakis observe in Chapter 6, ‘The commercial unfairness of recommender systems on social media’, ‘In the digital society, the availability of information is both a blessing and a curse’ (p. 148), and Taina Pihlajarinne and Annette Alén-Savikko, in ‘Conclusions’, surmise that policymakers are in a difficult position when attempting to develop a carefully tailored system of rights and responsibilities suitable for the media sector. In particular, Pihlajarinne and Alén-Savikko refer to The Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) (a proposed regulation by the European Commission), where the problem of disinformation also accounts for AI-powered content manipulation. If this problem is not resolved, AI systems and automated journalism may remain ‘an unchecked power with indeterminable consequences for society’ (p. 32) in general and democratic decision-making in particular.
The warnings about risks to democracy outlined in Artificial Intelligence and the Media contrast with the affirmative and optimistic narrative in The Digital Citizen(ship), which makes these books complementary and an interesting find for political scientists, as well as media and communication scholars. Additionally, they could help the wider audience of digital citizens orient themselves better in the current networked society. They could help confront the biases that digital citizens encounter in media by making their readers aware of the mechanisms that underlie the dissemination of information. However, these books are likely to remain out of reach for many private buyers due to the cost, unless they appear in a more affordable digital format. The ‘low-cost involvement’ (p. 161), referred to in The Digital Citizen(ship) as an essential condition for stimulating citizens’ participation, does not apply to the dissemination of these books. I anticipate, however, that university libraries around the world will be placing their orders with Edward Elgar Publishing very soon.