Political Science: Digital Citizenship

This article discusses the concept of neoliberalism and its influence on digital citizenship in the US. It explores the selective recognition of digital citizens based on neoliberal ideology and the reproduction of neoliberal hegemony. The article also highlights the challenges faced by marginalized Latino communities in accessing digital citizenship.

POLITICAL SCIENCE: DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP

Emma Coleman’s article brings to the fore the concept of neoliberalism and how it is playing out in
the digital citizenship as the US conducts Census through digital media. Neoliberalism has become
a dominant issue in the present political economy and the ‘digital citizen’ has become a deeply
political figure. The USA has a very particular image of the digital citizen as shown by its collection
of personal data and definition of who is a citizen and a foreigner. The ‘ideal’ digital citizen, who is
of great political relevance has reproduced neoliberal inceptions of subjectivity on who a US
citizen is. Wary of the political power held by the digital citizen, the US seeks to use technology to
limit or deny citizenship to Latinos, who do not fit the image of the ideal digital citizen (Coleman,
2019). The US recognizes digital citizens in a selective way, based on its neoliberal ideology, which
still views Latinos as ‘foreign’. The article demonstrates how digitization is reproducing the
existing political context as regards who is an American and demonstrates neoliberal hegemony in
the USA.
Schou and Hjelholt,’s article relates Coleman’s article in that many Western countries recognize
Internet access as a human right and with it the legitimacy of digital citizenship. The digital citizen
has political importance and rights, including the right to recognition and participation in social,
political, and economic activities. However, the US Census Bureau approach is ineffective,
insisting on a digital means for conducting a census, but failing to accommodate marginalized
Latino communities with less Internet access and Internet literacy. The Government is obliged to
accommodate all citizens, including Latinos whose citizenship is a hot political issue and should
provide sufficient paper forms to legitimize them as citizens either through Jus sanguinis or Jus soli
(Schou and Hjelholt, 2018).
Oyedemi (2014) argues that Internet access has become an important social and economic human
right issue where people have the right to Internet access and in so doing, become legitimate digital
citizens. This makes digital citizens important political actors. As such, failure to provide everyone
the right to Internet access is like violating any other human right, such as the right to freedom of
speech. Cheney-Lippold’s article is relevant to Coleman’s article because it highlights the neoliberal
politics of the US in which the government recognizes digital citizens using a set of algorithms such
that there is a ‘real citizen’ and a digital one generated based on algorithms. Those considered
foreign’ based on algorithms and online activity are watched ever closely, further highlighting how
digital citizenship is replaying neoliberal political and the governments urge to use the digital space
for greater ‘control’ and furthering its political agenda (Cheney-Lippold, 2016).

References
Cheney-Lippold, J. (2016). Jus Algoritmi: How the National Security Agency Remade Citizenship.
International Journal of Communication, 10, pp.1721–1742.
Coleman, E. (2019). It’s Not Just the Citizenship Question—the Digital Divide Could Hurt the
Count of Latinos in the Census. [online] Nextgov.com. Available at:
https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2019/05/its-not-just-citizenship-question-digital-divide-
could-hurt-count-latinos-census/157211/ [Accessed 5 Jun. 2019].
Oyedemi, T. (2014). Internet access as citizen's right? Citizenship in the digital age. Citizenship
Studies, 19(3-4), pp.450-464.
Schou, J. and Hjelholt, M. (2018). Digital citizenship and neoliberalization: governing digital
citizens in Denmark. Citizenship Studies, 22(5), pp.507-522.