New Technologies and Civic Engagement
New Agendas in Communication
New Agendas in Communication Series

This volume contributes to the extant and prolific New Agendas in Communication Series from one of the most salient perspectives within the field of Communication: New Technologies and Civic Engagement.

The impact of the Internet and other technological advances are constantly referred to at most junctures of today's Communication research agendas. The area of Political Communication is not immune to this trend. The effects of the Internet and digital media on today's political landscape, with a particular emphasis on enhancing individuals? civic duties and engagement levels, are theme of concern at many of the most renowned journals in Communication and Political Science disciplines.

First, this book pays attention to the overall impact of the Internet and people's use of digital media and new technologies to analyze civic life at large, reconceptualizing what citizenship is today. Secondly, and more specifically, participants shed light over the intersection of a number of current new agendas of research in regards to some of the most rapidly growing technological advances (i.e., new publics and citizenship), and the emergence of sprouting structures of citizenship. The volume shows the implications that new technological advances carry with respect the possibilities, patterns and mechanisms for citizen communication, citizen deliberation, public sphere and civic engagement.

PART I

Reconceptualizing Citizenship

1. Sampling from the civic buffet: Youth, new media and do-it-yourself citizenship

Kjerstin Thorson

2. Buying in or tuning out: The role of consumption in politically active young adults

Lucy Atkinson

3. Civic Engagement of Youths during their Transition to Adulthood

Roseanne Scholl

4. Social Media and Youth Participation in Singapore

Marko Skoric

5. Social media and their impact on civic participation

Homero Gil de Zúñiga & Saif Shahin

PART II

New Publics and Citizenship

6. Egocentric publics and perceptions of the worlds around us

Hernando Rojas

7. Internet, Ego-Centric Publics and Extremism

Magdalena Wojcieszak

8. In Search of Cognitive Complexity in the Contemporary Public Sphere

Jennifer Brundidge

9. Effects of Online Political Messages on their Senders: Conceptual Tools and Research Directions

Ray Pingree

PART III

Structure of Citizenship

10. ‘Click here to take action’: Action repertoires of youth civic organizations and the changing nature of civic participation

Chris Wells

11. Engaging Audiences via Online News Sites

Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud, Ashley Muddiman & Joshua Scacco

12. Personalization and the Future of News

Matt Hindman

Epilogue

13. What's Next? Three Challenges for the Future of Political Communication Research

Bruce Bimber

Homero Gil de Zúñiga is associate professor at University of Texas – Austin, where he heads the Community, Journalism and Communication Research (CJCR) unit within the School of Journalism.