Del diagnóstico a la auto-superación. Las tres transformaciones del espíritu

The Enquire (Ask a Librarian 24/7) welcome page, including the user interface on the right-hand side of the screen (highlighted by the author) [http://www.peoplesnetwork.gov.uk/ on 11/10/2008]

The Enquire service is a UK collaborative of over 80 public libraries in England and Scotland. Its homepage (Figure 15) provides the visitor with the opportunity to

communicate with trained staff 24/7 via a simple user interface. UK-based librarians are available during working hours, while queries are automatically forwarded to US partners during all other times.

Åberg and Shahmehri (2000) highlight the need for online organisations to provide services that can reach individual computer users with different information profiles and levels of expertise. Multimedia convergence facilitates the design of intelligent and adaptive services that identify and address individual users’ needs. In recent years, many online companies have incorporated live help features on their websites, which provide site visitors with the opportunity to contact customer service representatives or receive advice via text messaging.

Recent research has shown that employing text-to-speech (TTS) voice and 3-dimensional (3D) avatars in the user interfaces increases consumers’ cognitive and emotional trust toward the customer assistant (Qiu and Benbasat 2005). Such tools and facilities may be too resource-intensive or costly for many civic organisations, issue movements and NGOs funded by small donations or membership fees. However, the utilisation of synergies created through collaborative networks and the mobilisation of the organisation’s volunteer base through innovative design could lead to a sustainable model of live help-desks and interactive support systems.

In conclusion, the site is seen as a gateway to further awareness and as a potential starting point for further action. It should provide the tools and the space for citizens to share their feelings with other affected citizens/consumers, while also making its case confidently, persuasively and succinctly. It must be designed in such a way as to support a plurality of ways through which the visitor can gain awareness or actively engage, i.e.

offering the user the ability to choose their desired level of information depth, emotional engagement and interaction with others, rather than “pushing” these elements onto all visitors indiscriminately. The following section reflects on the implications of the findings presented so far and considers the challenges (and opportunities) facing online youth civic engagement.

5.6 Challenges to the Internet’s Empowering Potential

The hopes about the democratising potential of the internet are based on the medium’s capacity to provide citizens with greater choice of information, news and opinion sources, as well as the tools to become active content creators. The assumption is that users will actually make use of that capacity so as to cross-check news stories, search for a variety of viewpoints, learn about public affairs and actively create content. Few dispute the internet’s capacity to offer that level of choice and interactivity, yet when it comes to registering which online activities and facilities real users engage with, and to which extent, the evidence is more mixed, as is the case with the present case study.

However, there is a further note of caution to be registered regarding the internet’s potential for civic empowerment. The rise of Web 2.0 and the social web, which has allowed users to build social networks and potentially become active nodes of message production, has important implications regarding the originality, meaningfulness and socio-political gravitas of that user-generated content. Stutzman (2008) argues that users are ultimately constrained by the architectural constructs of web designers; their

interactions and content creation usually take place not in publicly owned civic spaces but within privatised, commodified structures (e.g. social-networking sites or online news media) that have been constructed deliberately to serve the interests of their architects, such as attracting advertising revenue. Bialski (2008) even goes further by questioning the value, if not the meaning, of these interactions and materials: “The dangers of the social web is the fact that users are generating content that is not truly exploratory and is not a result of their expression of […] their true powers”.

Still, even the critics acknowledge that emerging internet applications have been part of a cultural shift in which users are much more equipped to share, interact and communicate openly (Ingo 2008). The young people taking part in this study were perhaps less

creative and active online than expected, given especially their field of study. They also, consistently, emphasised their need for convenience and a quasi-consumerist approach to civic engagement. At the same time, however, they also appeared keen to learn more and prepared to emotionally engage with other citizens and public affairs as long as the terms of that engagement are accessible and consistent to their lifeworld.

Perhaps a more potent challenge to civic organisations attempting to gain the online attention of youth is the profound shift in the public’s perception of the citizen’s role and civic responsibilities within democratically organised societies. The traditional ideological, social, ethnic and religious cleavages that determined political action for decades have been retreating in favour of individualised prosperity and consumer choice. Youth notions of citizenship, civic engagement and politics – and the motivations, fears and needs upon which they are based – are equally important as the traditional conceptualisations upon which the political system and civic culture of liberal democracies, including Britain, are based. Coleman (2004: 1) reminds us that “the lament for old, localised solidarities fails to resonate with twenty-first century citizens whose interpersonal networks are

increasingly a matter of choice rather than a consequence of geography”.

The narrative of choice and convenience is explicitly dominant throughout our

participants’ responses; conversely, the roles of collectivism, duty and civic rituals are obscure. The terms and conditions that need to be met for these young people to engage online are evident: the benefits of civic action must be highlighted and they must be tangible; the reasons for engaging in such action should be clear and relevant; the act of participation itself should not stress the individual’s resources; the user-citizen-consumer should be able to choose why, when and how they will engage with a public affair or cause.

It could be argued that the concept of civic duty is incompatible with the setting of “terms and conditions” to one’s civic engagement. While citizens’ notion of collective

responsibility may, indeed, be changing, an alternative form of individual responsibility could be emerging around the notion of empathy. Civic organisations might be able to tap into citizens’ moral codes by highlighting, not necessarily the tangible or material benefits of each civic action, but the emotional and aesthetic pleasure that individuals can receive through mobilising on issues that they feel passionate about. Schudson (2007) notes that, as political behaviour can be both public-spirited and egocentric, consumer behaviour can also be public-interested as well as self-interested.

These shifts in the civic culture are coupled with similar changes in the media culture.

While the internet is generally embedded in the everyday life, these young people are essentially instrumental users of the medium seeking convenience and practical solutions to their everyday problems. Rather than browsing aimlessly, enjoying the process of surfing and coming across people, material, issues and opinions that they would not normally encounter, these users are largely focused on keeping in touch with existing friends and family, using the net as a reference tool for their work, study and private interests, and completing specific everyday life tasks, such as banking and

shopping. Public affairs, established institutions and democracy itself are now competing for these users’ attention against a wealth of other everyday opportunities, issues and interests.

The fundamental tension between the medium’s culture of instant, individual gratification and democracy’s painstakingly long-term, collectivist exchange of ideas appears to be quite salient in this discussion. However, the challenge facing political institutions and civic organisations is not, primarily, a technological one – it is a political one. The

evidence presented in this chapter suggests that, should we wish to employ the internet as a means of youth engagement, then some of the assumptions and principles upon which our understanding of democratic participation is based may need to change. That is not to say that existing structures and conceptualisations of democracy are flawed or misguided, but, merely, that as they currently stand, they may not be able to survive or succeed in that specific media environment as an autonomous, insular even, area of human practice.

Modern, indirect democracies depend on the aggregating, mediating and scrutinising roles of the media. Yet, the simultaneous multiplication, segmentation and convergence of channels, genres and platforms challenge the influence and role of political leaders and institutions; not necessarily, as it has often been argued, giving way to empowered active users/content creators, but also to commodified media platforms serving private interests. Thus, political organisations have to decide whether they wish to concede their special place in the national public sphere and engage with that new environment in the first place; and, if so, the extent to which they are prepared to perceive of their values, ideas, issues and policies as products that need to be sold in a competitive market populated by demanding consumers. The next chapter will examine whether youth organisations and NGOs are achieving civic usability and the extent to which they are utilising the net in order to effectively reach younger citizens within this highly saturated and segmented environment.

“Any attempts […] to reconnect with young people would appear to require democratic institutions and practices to restyle their political communication in such ways as to be commensurate with the interests and discourse of contemporary youth culture in an increasingly deinstitutionalised and personalised social world.

As the generation whose lifestyle most encompasses the use of digital communications it should be no surprise that the creative adoption of new media […] to engage young citizens would be an essential element of this restyling strategy. But it also necessitates an acknowledgement of the wider changing social conditions and political culture within which young people must now operate and how this relationship is mediated by ICTs”

(Loader 2007b: 17)

Chapter 6