Citizenship in the Cloud : Exploring Civic Obligations in Web 2.0 Space

This paper explores the civic implications of on-line interactions. As we move into what Yochai Benkler (2006) calls the ﾓnetworked information economy,ﾔ represented by increased server storage capacity, the proliferation of personal computers with fast microprocessor speeds, and the advent of broadband internet access, serious questions remain regarding the contours of a networked information polity This gap gains increasing salience as a growing number of people construct a life in the cloud where social interactions can be conducted in virtual communities where people can create on-line personas and interact visually with others in the cloud. This essay seeks to draw disparate strands in Internet studies, sociology, cognitive psychology, digital antrhopology and the citizenship literature in political science to examine the varying ways we can conceptualize good citizenship in a virtual cloud of e-mails, photographs, home movies, blog entries, Facebook chats and other forms of information combine to form an individual's on-line self