Don’t @ me: rethinking digital civility online and in school

ABSTRACT

Online platforms enable free-form, spontaneous, unbridled political expression, blurring the public and private, the written and spoken, and the norms of formal and casual speech. Consequently, they pose new opportunities and challenges to civic interactions, necessitating a reconfiguration of the norms informing civic exchanges. In this paper, we introduce a relational account of civility attuned to emerging modes of civic interactions online, one which goes beyond prescribing specific modes of speech and conduct. We suggest three characteristics of civility in digital contexts: commitment to ongoing and just dialogue, seeking a diverse audience with a shared goal, and horizontal accountability. We then make the case for schools’ vital role in cultivating digital civility. Rather than introducing new curricular content, we argue for reframing existing school engagement with online communication to support the development of digital civility, in light of the shifting forms of participation that typify youth civic engagement today.

KEYWORDS:

• Civility
• digital media
• citizenship
• civic education
• school

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Hilla Dishon, Megan Bogia and Michael Jefferson, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for their comments on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gideon Dishon holds a PhD in education from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master’s and Bachelor’s in philosophy from Tel Aviv University. His research explores the convergences and tensions between the civic and academic functions of education, with a special interest in the emerging role digital technologies play in these endeavors.

Sigal Ben-Porath is Professor of Education, Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include Citizenship under Fire: Democratic Education in Times of War, Princeton University Press 2006, Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship (edited, with Rogers Smith) Penn Press 2012, and Free Speech on Campus (Penn Press, 2017).

ORCID

Gideon Dishon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1747-403X

Notes

1 Put differently, this paper focuses on actions that citizens take to promote public goals, and interactions that they have in public online contexts as citizens and members of various communities. In that, it focuses on the sphere of action that is related to but distinct from the conventional politics which focuses on electing representatives and responding to their actions (through protests, letters and the like). Rather, we are interested in actions and interactions by citizens (or members of the community) as they seek shared interests, visions, and collaborations – even before they fully define these in clear political terms (Wolin 1994).

2 It should be noted that these processes naturally play out differently across varying digital platforms according to their specific characteristics. Thus, for instance, commenting on news sites does not emphasize the blurring of the public and private, whereas Twitter is more vulnerable to misunderstanding due to its strict character limit. While pointing out how these differences shape norms of civility across platforms is a valuable endeavor, it is beyond the scope of this paper, which focuses on the normative aspects of digital civic communication more broadly.

3 On the diversity of conceptions of justice and their relations to good citizenship and relevant educational programs, see Westheimer and Kahne 2004. For this paper, plural conceptions of citizenship and of justice can be relevant, as long as they maintain a commitment to sustaining equal civic standing as a core aspect of just relations.

4 This does not imply that learning and applying polite and respectful modes of interactions is no longer important. Nevertheless, such a skill based approach should be secondary to our understanding of civility in terms of ongoing just dialogue.

5 At the same time, we remain aware of the risks of horizontal accountability deteriorating into a mode of uncivil conduct, due to the attempt to silence uncomfortable or merely opposing viewpoints. Nevertheless, we contend that such risks are justified when weighed against the importance of citizens viewing themselves as responsible to, and capable of, shaping the public sphere.

6 Some readers might worry about the dangers of inculcation or indoctrination in schools. We argue that the initiation into certain modes of shared living is an unavoidable characteristic of schools, where children spend a substantial part of their childhood. To us, the question then is not whether schools exert any influence, but rather what modes of shared living children practice in schools, and whether they amount to indoctrination into a way of life (see Ben-Porath and Dishon 2015).

7 This does not come at the expense of schools’ more traditional civic roles.

8 We thank an anonymous reviewer for pushing us to clarify this distinction.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Spencer Foundation [grant number 201600166].