Good citizenship as a frame contest: Kony2012,memes,and critiques of the networked citizen

The “changing citizenship” thesis

While the idea of the good citizen often seems straightforward and common sense in any given point in time, in any particular national context, we know from empirical research that expectations of citizenship change over time and across contexts, shifting in emphasis as sociological—and technological—possibilities for action change (Bimber, 2003; Brown, 1997; Schudson, 1998). Schudson (1998) detailed shifts in expectations made of American citizens, showing that what it means to be informed and engaged has changed drastically since the early days of the republic. Bimber (2003) connects changes in civic practice to the increasing availability of information and the speed of communication technologies.

A number of scholars have suggested that another shift in conceptions of good citizenship is underway. Younger cohorts have not taken up the civic habits of their elders, being less likely to vote, to join in certain kinds of civic associations, and even to pay attention to campaign politics (see, for example, Zukin et al., 2006). But rather than interpreting these data as a civic decline, Bennett (1998, 2008; Bennett et al., 2009), Dalton (2008, 2009), and others have proposed that today’s citizens are increasingly taking up new repertoires of action: more personalized, expressive, and networked than earlier forms. These new repertoires, moreover, may reflect a change in underlying values and beliefs. This is the “changing citizenship” thesis. Young adults, according to this argument, increasingly support a personalized, self-expressive form of citizenship.

The changing citizenship thesis provides a response to those who propose that civic culture in Western societies is in decline (e.g. Putnam, 2000). However, we know little about the mechanisms that might explain how new understandings of citizenship emerge and circulate. We propose that changing perceptions of good citizenship occur through a communicative process of negotiation and contestation, one best understood through the lens of theoretical work on framing and the frame contest. This approach allows us to emphasize that ideals of good citizenship are not only social constructions but are also connected to political power. Historically, definitions of what a “good citizen” should do or know have often been used to exclude certain groups from participation (Pykett et al., 2010; Schudson, 1998).

Framing the good citizen

Frames can be understood as “central organizing ideas” that provide a structure to reality, helping to make sense of events (Gamson and Modigliani, 1989; Gitlin, 1980; Goffman, 1974). Frames can be located in multiple sites. Frames that exist “out there”—in the media, for example—are closely linked to frames that contour individual understandings—frames “inside the head”—as they serve as resources used actively by citizens attempting to make sense of political reality (Pan and Kosicki, 1993; Price et al., 2005). Gamson (1992) showed that people use media frames to make sense of political issues, while integrating them with frames gleaned through personal experience (Nisbet and Scheufele, 2009).

Gamson and Modigliani (1989) examine how ongoing public discourse on an issue is organized through frames that function as “interpretive packages.” These “packages” cluster together sets of various symbolic devices, such as metaphors, catch phrases, visual images, and moral appeals that all derive from a shared angle or viewpoint on the issue at hand. While people participating in public discourse cannot necessarily articulate the “title” or “category” of the frame, they have a sense of the ways in which ideas cluster together.

We propose that different conceptions of good citizenship can also be understood as frames or interpretive packages. Different sets of ideas around good citizenship cluster together in certain frames and are distinct from other frames. The process of framing good citizenship should be understood as a political struggle—elites and other actors negotiate frames that then structure how citizens can imagine and perform “good citizenship” (Pykett et al., 2010). Good citizenship frames imply that some forms of political action are more desirable than others and are therefore connected to political power.

Framing theory has also been used on a more macro-level, with the goal of understanding how certain sets of ideas become dominant over time. Here, framing is concerned with why one set of ideas may have a “career” that is more successful than another. Central to this research is the notion of a frame contest, in which one or more frames are seen as competing to become dominant in public understandings of an issue or event (Carragee and Roefs, 2004; Vliegenthart and van Zoonen, 2011). Frames are more likely to succeed—that is, “win” a frame contest—when they are sponsored by powerful elites, are more resonant with popular culture, and/or are a better fit with existing norms and practices (Benford and Snow, 2000; Entman, 2003; Gamson and Modigliani, 1989).

Ideas about good citizenship can likewise be seen as having a career, in which different frames are in contestation with each other. At any given time in history, there are multiple ways to imagine good citizens—what they need to know, how they should act—and multiple actors involved in a power struggle over the appropriate definition of good citizenship (Entman, 2003; Pykett et al., 2010). Some actors may benefit from maintaining existing notions of good citizenship, while others may push for alternative conceptions that can support their goals.

The outcome of a frame contest is embedded in relationships of power. Some collections of actors have more resources—material, distribution, cultural, skill—to sponsor their frame more effectively (Pan and Kosicki, 2001). Frames of good citizenship that are more dominant culturally (e.g. in news stories, civics text books, campaign materials) in turn shape how individuals view themselves, their role as good citizens, and what behaviors are seen as “good” or “bad” (Thorson, 2012).

Frame contests in everyday discourse

Previous studies of frame contests have largely focused on analysis of frames present in the mass media. The rise of user-generated content gives us a way to analyze frame contests as they are carried out in spaces more closely located in everyday life. Discursive practices of framing are not conducted by elites alone (Pan and Kosicki, 2001). In our case, we look at how frames of good citizenship were reflected and propagated in two kinds of online resources: in the Kony2012 movie produced by IC and in memes created in reaction to the campaign. Both these types of cultural artifacts—the movie and the memes responding to it—were created under a “network logic” (Klinger and Svensson, 2014): they were designed with the goal of achieving spreadability across the multiple networks of the social Internet.

Shifman (2013: 41) defines Internet memes as a group of digital items sharing common characteristics that are created with awareness of each other and are circulated, imitated, and transformed via the Internet by multiple users. The concept of the meme was inspired by the work of geneticist Richard Dawkins (1976), who thought of memes as spreading by copying or imitation. Yet, in contrast to what the biological metaphor may imply, memes do not replicate or spread by themselves. They are circulated by individuals purposefully to make a statement, often an irreverent one (Jenkins, 2009).

Memes can take on various genres (Shifman, 2013; Wiggins and Bowers, 2014)—our analysis focuses on the “image macro,” an image superimposed with a humorous caption that was common in the aftermath of Kony2012. In the context of a participatory culture, in which barriers to media production are lowered (Jenkins et al., 2006), many people can participate in the creation of such image macros. Websites like memegenerator make their creation easy, and due to their proliferation as a cultural form, many individuals pick them up and share them through their social network sites. Making memes culturally resonant—by using meme conventions, by making popular culture references—is a way to support the goal of spreadability.

While often irreverent, memes can be seen as a way that people insert themselves into a public conversation and can be used as a tool for political meaning-making (e.g. Milner, 2013; Ekdale and Tully, 2014). Recalling Gamson and Modigliani’s (1989) seminal work, we can think of the memes as the editorial cartoon in its peer-created version: a way for citizens to present their humorous take on the issues of the day.

The case of Kony2012

The half-hour Kony2012 movie, while the target of much criticism, was also lauded for its resonating message—after all, it became the most spreadable online video for a reason. We suggest that a key part of its resonance was an articulation of a frame of civic action, which we call the “networked citizen.” In what follows, we analyze the citizenship frame that underlies the message of Kony2012. This frame echoes some of the emergent models of citizenship discussed by theorists, such as Bennett’s (2008) self-actualizing citizen or Schudson’s (1998) monitorial citizen. Some of the key tenets of the networked citizen frame are summarized in Table 1. After explaining our method of meme collection and analysis, we continue to present counter-frames and critiques of the “networked citizen” as they appeared in memes.

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Table 1.

The networked citizen versus the informed citizen frames.

	Networked citizen model		Counter-frame grounded in the informed citizen model
	Model for civic action	Message in Kony2012	Model for civic action	Critique in memes—Kony2012 supporters …
How to know	A few concerned citizens can inform others of a pressing issue	“99% of the planet doesn’t know who he is. If they knew, Kony would have been stopped long ago.”	“Do your research:” Seek information by trusted sources to learn about issues.	Are clueless, jumped on the bandwagon, shared the video without additional research (Memes 1–6, 14)
	Personal connections can motivate action	“We’re going to stop them. I made that promise to Jacob … over the past 9 years, I have fought to fulfill it.”	Decisions to act should be made based on rational evaluation	Were swayed by emotions rather than persuaded rationally (Meme 7, 14)
How to act	Many small acts aggregate to large-scale influence	“One individual can make an impact.”	Act within formal institutions (e.g. vote)	Engaged in meaningless Internet activism (Memes 8–11, 14). Counterargument: meme 17
	Leveraging voice through networked communication	“The world we live in has new rules … the technology that has brought our planet together is allowing us to respond to the problems of our friends.”	Participation should be sustained over time	Don’t really care—Kony2012 is just a fad (Memes 12–14). Counterargument: Meme 18

Counter-frames and critiques of the networked citizen in Kony2012 memes

At the time of the research, the Kony2012 collection on knowyourmeme.com, a website documenting popular Internet phenomena, included 458 memes. For our analysis, we wanted to focus on memes that comment on forms of citizenship. We thus removed from the list memes that simply played with the name “Kony” (e.g. “My Little Kony,” “ice cream Kony”; see Figure 1 for an example), repeating memes, as well as memes that were not in the image macro format. This resulted in 135 image macros related to the Kony2012 campaign, IC, and those who participated in the campaign.

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Figure 1.

“My little Kony.”

An initial classification of these images showed that 63% specifically critiqued the Kony2012 campaign and its participants. We only found four memes representing a positive evaluation of the campaign or a reaction to its critiques. Additional 46 memes focused on a breakdown that IC co-founder Jason Russell suffered in the aftermath of the campaign (“Kony” creator Jason Russell exhausted, dehydrated, wife says, 2012). These memes contributed to the negative evaluation of the Kony campaign; however, they are not at the center of this analysis as they do not reflect notions around citizenship.

We thus conducted a thematic qualitative analysis of the 85 memes that focused on critiquing the campaign and its participants and the 4 that offered a positive response to the campaign. We examined their juxtaposition of image and text and explored how meaning was created through their contrast. We considered their intertextual references, to each other, to the campaign, and to popular culture artifacts. Our focus was on parsing out the frame of good citizenship emergent from them.

We posit the memes as proposing a counter-frame to that presented in the movie, one depicting a very different narrative about how the good citizen should learn about political issues and about the appropriate forms of political participation. The memes mostly express critiques of Kony2012 supporters, but underlying these critiques, as Table 1 shows, is a different frame of good citizenship. This frame rejects many of the premises of the “networked citizen” model and instead reflects the ideals of the “informed citizen,” a citizenship model that has been dominant in the US context since the progressive era (Schudson, 1998). The long history of this frame, its propagation through the educational system and the media, and its wide public acceptance as common sense, all account for its cultural resonance when used in memes.

How to know: good citizens “do their research” and act rationally

In the memes, the holy grail of good citizenship is “doing your research.” Images depict supporters of Kony2012 as not having sufficiently researched Joseph Kony, Uganda, or US foreign policy before sharing the campaign on their social networks.

Some versions of this portrayal show young supporters of the Kony2012 campaign as clueless. For example, one image is captioned “Didn’t watch video about Kony, but knows it’s caused a stir … Posts Facebook status about how cool ‘that Kony guy’ is” (Meme 1 ² ); another, depicting a young male college student, reads, “Supports Kony 2012 … Can’t locate Uganda on a world map” (Meme 2) (see Figure 2). Other memes argue not only that supporters should have researched the campaign but also that they should go further and learn about other issues in Africa before deciding whether stopping Kony is the right cause to support. In this category, we find the image of a college student holding his cell phone, and the caption “Supports Invisible Children … Ignores the anti-gay bill and its effect on Uganda” (Meme 3).

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Figure 2.

“Supports Kony2012, can’t locate Uganda on a world map.”

These calls reflect the frame of the informed citizen, who is expected to have full information before making a decision, one who knows and takes into account details of different policy options, even about a political issue that was virtually invisible to the majority of the American public only days before. This vision is recognizable from Schudson’s (1998) writing about the idealized 20th century informed citizen who carefully considers all alternatives, but it takes on a new weight given the vast troves of digital information resources. The informed citizen is expected to take the time to find out all the facts available online and become something of a policy expert before taking action. Althaus (2006) has noted that this particular vision of informed citizenship is one that is dominant in social scientific research, primarily because this normative position is assumed—incorrectly—to stem from key tenets of democratic theory. Schudson’s (1998) “monitorial citizen” model suggests a different route, one highlighted in the Kony2012 narrative: concerned citizens can notify others of a pressing issue, and citizens can become informed on a subject collectively—yet meme creators and disseminators seem unconvinced of this frame.

Another view of Kony2012 supporters emerges from memes that portray those who shared the video as having fallen for a scam, suggesting that Kony2012 is not a real social change campaign about which reasonable people could disagree but rather a scheme with the purpose of manipulating people or profiting on their behalf—and this would have been discovered had video sharers only done more research. One example plays with an advertisement for a Sony television, showing a television screen with the caption “Kony.make.believe” (Meme 4) (see Figure 3). Another references the Kony2012 campaign’s own slogan, using a version of their poster with the logo “Phony 2012 … one thing we can easily fall for” (Meme 5). While IC can be critiqued for their methods of social change, presenting the non-profit as a “scam” represents a misunderstanding of the case and demonstrates fears of popular ignorance and susceptibility to manipulation, as a counter-frame to the vision of the “networked citizen.” Another illustrative caption reads, “Kony 2012 … proving that 99% of YouTubers believe exactly what a video tells them” (Meme 6). Fears about susceptibility of the mass public are amplified by concerns over the power of networked media to enable the spread of misinformation—scams can “go viral.”

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Figure 3.

“Kony.make.believe.”

A final element of the “how to know” critique is an implied requirement for the good citizen to separate between rationality and emotion. In this frame, the good citizen must bracket out affect as irrelevant to political decision-making. Consider the meme of the “condescending Willy Wonka” genre (depicting Gene Wilder as the chocolate Mogul, a skeptical grin on his face) with the caption “Kony 2012 made you cry? You better donate some money to their cause without doing any further research on the matter” (Meme 7) (see Figure 4). In this critique, affect is seen as an opposite to rationality: you either cry, or you do research and find out the facts. This critique ignores the positive potential of affect within politics, for example, when emotional reactions mobilize us to take political action (Polletta, 2006).

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Figure 4.

“Kony 2012 made you cry?”

How to act: sharing content is not real political participation

The second broad category found in the memes’ framing of good citizenship focuses on appropriate action repertoires. Our analysis of these memes uncovers two themes: first, online repertoires are seen as meaningless in contrast to action within formal institutions; second, Kony2012 supporters are depicted as not really caring, as taking up “easy” forms of engagement to make themselves feel better about not doing “real” activism.

The term “slacktivism,” referring to easy, symbolic actions that arguably have little practical effect, has been widely debated in political activist circles (Morozov, 2009). Malcolm Gladwell’s (2010) article critiquing the notion of a “Twitter revolution” caused a renewed explosion of the debate around online action. In scholarly circles, this debate has focused on whether online forms of political action might be replacing other “on the ground” forms of participation (Christensen, 2011). As Kony2012 became increasingly popular on the social networks of young people, blog commentary and mainstream media coverage often interpreted the phenomenon through the slacktivism lens. For example, in a Forbes.com article entitled “Social media, slacktivism, and Kony2012,” Steven Bertoni claims, “The Kony documentary is basically a huge awareness campaign. As many have pointed out, awareness and social media alone will do very little to stop the atrocities in Africa” (Bertoni and Knapp, 2012). Our analysis of memes shows that this debate was not limited to scholarly or journalistic discussion. Many of the memes reflect the belief that actions like spreading a video do not qualify as an act of good citizenship and simply serve to give the false impression of having “saved the world.”

Memes in this category sarcastically stress the lack of effectiveness of acts such as posting, sharing, and liking and highlight the naïveté of believing that such actions could make a difference. A common variation is a picture of a teenage boy excitedly pumping his fist in front of the computer screen, with the caption “Liked a video about Kony … I’m saving the world” (Meme 8) or, in another version, “Share Kony video … I fixed Africa!” (Meme 9) (Figure 5). A different take on this category depicts Kony’s head, with the caption “If you postin’ bout Kony I feel bad for you son, he snatched 99 children and your post saved none” (Meme 10). A host of memes use various versions of the caption “watch one 30 minute video … become social activist” (Meme 11) (Figure 6), all superimposed over different images of young people. Even more than they seem concerned with the lack of effectiveness of online action, these images evoke concern that young people feel as if what they are doing is valuable or, in other words, gain a false sense of political efficacy.

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Figure 5.

“Share Kony Video … I fixed Africa!”

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Figure 6.

“Watch 30 minute video on internet … Become social activist.”

These critiques of forms of participation map on to the scholarly debate as to whether young citizens are failing to be engaged through traditional means or whether online action repertoires are legitimate, and at least potentially efficacious, forms of participation (see, for example, Bennett, 2008). One way to understand some of the new forms of participation through digital media is as a disappointment with the ability of traditional political systems to achieve change and thus as a conscious choice to engage different “levers of change”: for example, achieving social goals by raising awareness and changing norms (Zuckerman, 2014).

However, the memes’ framing of good citizenship leaves little room for negotiating new understandings of “good participation” and instead reflects the view that effective citizen action is that channeled toward electoral politics. We do not see memes cynically pronouncing “I voted in the presidential election … I fixed the world,” although such a critique is no less plausible. Moreover, these memes seem to implicitly endorse the “substitution thesis,” the idea that engaging in online action takes the place of traditional offline participation, thereby leading to lower overall levels of participation (see Christensen, 2011). Some reflect a belief in the classic notion of the “narcotizing dysfunction” of the media, where being exposed to a social issue through the media is misperceived as taking actual action around it (Lazarsfeld and Merton, 1948).

If online action is useless, according to the counter-frame of the memes, then young people engaging in it do not really care. Building on prevalent stereotypes of the young generation as apathetic, one meme shows a morose-looking teenager dressed in shades of black and gray, sitting down against the wall with his long black hair covering his eyes. The caption reads, “Tried to stop Kony … Forgot I don’t have a gun … or live in Africa … or care enough” (Meme 12). Another meme builds on the “scumbag Steve” genre, featuring a young man with a sideways fitted cap standing in a hallway. In the Kony2012 version, the caption on this photograph reads, “Wants to bring down Kony … Still doesn’t care about other world issues” (Meme 13).

These different critiques—young people are apathetic, online action is inefficacious, and a good citizen is a researching citizen— are often intertwined. For example, one meme portrays a “condescending Willy Wonka” with the caption “Oh, you reblogged/tweeted an opinion about Joseph Kony? … Please, elaborate on how you care about Ugandan children that you never knew existed just a few days ago” (Meme 14). Online activism is presented as simply jumping on a trendy bandwagon.

It is worth noting that even the four memes we found that present a positive evaluation of the campaign can be seen as rooted in the informed citizen frame, rather than propagating the networked citizen. Two of the memes simply redirect the sarcasm to focus back on opponents of the campaign. We thus see the same image of “condescending Willy Wonka” with the caption “Oh you mock Kony2012 supporters … you’re such a nonconformist” (Meme 15) or “Oh, you’re cynical about the stop Kony campaign? … it must be easy when he’s not knocking on your door” (Meme 16). Only two memes reflect some belief in the power of online action. One questions the utility of other, traditional, means of action, with the caption “Oh, so you’re ridiculing Kony2012 on Facebook? … you must have so many better ideas of how to spread public awareness of a serious atrocity” (Meme 17). The final positive meme depicts Joseph Kony with the caption “Woke up today … made 4 million enemies” (18), extending a claim that the campaign was indeed impactful. Out of all the memes, this is the only one reflecting the potential power of networked new media to make a difference—the very message that was conveyed in the Kony2012 movie.

If good citizenship is changing, where does that change take place?

The changing citizenship thesis posits that the ways that citizens can and should participate in politics are changing in the context of networked digital media. We suggest the theoretical lens of the frame contest as the mechanism through which to understand how changes in citizenship norms may be debated and negotiated over time. According to our analysis—as well as current empirical evidence (Hustinx et al., 2012)—the frame of the “networked citizen” is currently in contest with the frame of the “informed citizen,” yet the informed citizen model is alive and kicking, even for people steeped in online digital culture like the creators of Internet memes.

The memes we analyzed offer a window into the frames of good citizenship that cultural creators can draw from. The memes’ successful propagation of their message relies on the resonance of the underlying ideas around good citizenship and the stereotypical portrayal of young people and is further boosted by the way they play with and remix popular culture. Using familiar meme tropes (“Scumbag Steve,” “Condescending Willy Wonka”) and using rap-style language or LOLcat images, all assist the frame’s power attained through cultural resonance. Yet while their form is modern, the memes work from within the dominant frame of good citizenship (Schudson, 1998), one that values information coming from authoritative sources, participation through formal institutions, and a separation between emotionality and rationality. At a time in which the possibilities to participate politically are evolving, the memes seem skeptical of networked political action and leave very little space to collectively imagine what alternative forms of participation may look like or how they can have political power (see, for example, Penney, 2014; Vie, 2014).

The Kony2012 campaign and its aftermath pitted a frame of digital-powered social change against a counter-frame about the rise of “slacktivist” political action repertoires and contrasted hopes for the mobilization potential of a networked public sphere with fears about the spread of misinformation among an easily duped populace. The different frames of good citizenship were contested between activist communities, discussing the efficacy of social media campaigns and mobilizing online action, and in scholarly debates over changing forms of civic action. But the debate about what it means to be a good citizen was also enacted by everyday people in cultural spaces. In contrast to framing theory’s focus on mass media as the main locus of frame contests, participatory culture offers a window into discursive sites in which these contests take place (Jenkins, 2006).

Gamson (1992) claims that the frames from mass media discussion of social issues serve as resources for individuals talking about these issues, who mix and match the frames they encounter with their own experiences and viewpoints. Theoretically, we understand the meme creators as drawing on the stock of publically available resources for thinking through what it means to be a good citizen (Swidler, 2001; Thorson, 2012). These resources—ways of thinking about good citizenship—circulate through mass media as well as participatory culture. The dominance of the informed citizen model in these memes reflects the continued dominance of this model in broader American culture.

Framing theory posits that frames are more likely to “win” frame contests—and to be picked up by individuals—when they are sponsored by powerful elites, are resonant with popular culture, and/or are a better fit with existing norms and practices (Benford and Snow, 2000; Entman, 2003; Gamson and Modigliani, 1989). In the case of Kony2012, the frame of the networked citizen and the counter-frame grounded in the informed citizen model both have a mix of these characteristics. The “networked citizen” frame was sponsored by IC in their Kony2012 movie. While not a traditional elite, this non-profit organization nevertheless used its resources, including skill (producing a powerful movie), material (funding the campaign), and distribution (via networks of supporters, including well-known celebrities) to spread its message (Pan and Kosicki, 2001). Its frame of the networked citizen resonated with young people who grew up in the context of online culture and are attracted to its potential as a locus for social change, as evidenced by the rapid spread of the movie through networks of young adults (Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2012). Yet the frame of the “networked citizen” was powerfully countered in memes, whose wide spread showed that the model of the “informed citizen” maintains powerful cultural resonance.

Beliefs about good citizenship are normative: they entail judgments about what kinds of behavior are valued and which are not, and therefore are deeply entangled in competitions over political power. From this perspective, we can think of changing models of good citizenship not simply as a neutral process that happens over time based on social and technological change but as a contest for dominance. The framing of the good citizen manifests a political struggle, in which the frames that elite actors put forward shape the range of acceptable acts that citizens can take on (Pykett et al., 2010).

A difficult question this raises—and one this study was not designed to answer—is whether one frame of citizenship should be preferred over the other from the standpoint of normative positions within democratic theory. Systems of meaning tend to protect and serve dominant interests in society (Kozinets, 2008). Frames of good citizenship have historically functioned in just this way. The roots of the informed citizen model lie in the Progressive Era of American history, when newfound emphasis on political knowledge as a requirement of good citizenship enabled the disenfranchisement of many Americans, including nearly all African Americans, through reforms such as the Australian ballot and literacy requirements (Schudson, 1998). Althaus (2006) and others (e.g. Bennett, 2008) have criticized the informed citizen model as drastically narrowing the repertoires of acceptable actions on the part of citizens and setting the bar for informed citizenship too high. On the other hand, there are little existing data to show that forms of political action required by the networked citizen model will prove efficacious in connecting citizens to the institutional forms of action (e.g. voting, cognitive involvement with governmental politics) that remain central to sustaining functioning democracies.

By positioning this debate in terms of a frame contest in which multiple sets of elite actors are sponsoring different frames, but in which citizens have both space and agency to negotiate these frames, we show a theoretical path through which a synthesis of the two models may emerge. Research in other domains has shown that many individuals manage multiple, competing frames for thinking about various aspects of their lives, moving with relative ease in their speech and action between elements in discourses around, for example, technology (Kozinets, 2008) masculinity (Holt and Thompson, 2004), and love and marriage (Swidler, 2001). The co-existence of multiple frames of good citizenship in the contemporary era offers a way to think about how framing resources may inspire civic practices that bridge or synthesize different citizenship models. For example, in the context of networked communication, the burden of informed citizenship may not reside exclusively within the individual, but rather, when the “monitorial citizen” is part of a “collective intelligence” network, citizens may inform each other of issues and become educated collectively (Levy, 1997; see also Jenkins, 2006). That both the Kony2012 movie and its critiques in user-generated memes—each presenting a different argument about what good citizenship entails—were so resonant may point at the fact that we are at a time of co-existing norms, that are vying for dominance. If indeed a shift in citizenship styles is underway, it has not yet been completed.