The Future of Civic Engagement in the Digital Age

Abstract

There is widespread agreement in the United States that community participation is a valuable practice occurring at substate equivalents of government. The compact disc technology and the Internet continue to transform economic and civic engagement, as well as the means for conducting all types of transactions between individuals. As both of these technologies mature over the course of the next decade, it is especially important to understand how they alter the form and frequency of participatory practices among citizens (B. Schmitt et al., 2024). This essay offers a detailed empirical analysis of how digital media affects one such practice, standard setting from a call for proposals. It supports the worries of those who fear that digital tools will make the process less neighborhood-friendly (Couldry et al., 2014). This development, in turn, underscores the need for adaptive strategies that can enhance civic participation in a variety of institutional contexts and at different levels of government. At the same time, this analysis again suggests traditional face-to-face methods may need to be retooled, to take full advantage of the new digital opportunities.

 Keywords civic engagement, digital age, community participation, technology, participatory practices, digital media, adaptive strategies