Let’s be careful out there … : how digital rights advocates educate citizens in the digital age

ABSTRACT

From the early days of the printed press, citizens have challenged and modified the information environment as constructed by governments and media organizations. In the digital era, this struggle is manifested in the work of civil-society organizations calling to expand the boundaries of digital rights such as access to the internet, freedom of speech, and the right to privacy. Alongside their traditional activity of confronting governments and internet organizations, these bodies have also engaged in educating citizens about their rights. In order to shed light on such educational efforts, I examine the activities of four civil-society organizations operating in three countries (Germany, Israel, and the U.S.) by conducting a content analysis of their websites between 2013 and 2015. The results suggest that the organizations’ interactions with the public are guided by three main principles: (1) cultural informational framing: delivering accurate technological and political information, which is framed so as to resonate with the cultural premises and everyday lives of the target audiences; (2) personal activism: propelling citizens toward participation, primarily through political clicktivism and by providing them with technological guidance and tools for digital self-protection; and (3) branding digital rights activism: fostering a unique image for a particular organization’s digital rights activism, mostly through selling merchandise to citizens. Using these strategies, the organizations aim to construct the social–political–cultural identity of a generation who are knowledgeable, politically active, and aware of their rights in the digital age. The characteristics of this identity are discussed in the conclusion.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital rights
• advocacy
• media literacy
• civil society
• media reform

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Efrat Daskal is currently a Lady Davis Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests are media policy (including internet governance), media literacy and media ethics. [email: [email protected]].

Notes

1 The EFF is a US-based organization formed in 1990; the DRM in Israel was established in 2009; DG was established in 2010; and DC (formerly known as FoeBuD) was founded in 1987.

Additional information

Funding

This study was made possible through the support of the Open University of Israel.