About

CdC LogoThe CdC’s mission is to promote outstanding research on the changing nature of citizenship in a digitally networked society and to contribute to the analysis and development of policy in this area.

The CdC is a trusted source of independent critical analysis, with extensive international research connections and excellent relationships with policy-makers in the UK, Europe and globally. The Centre aims to build on its reputation by:

  • developing and participating in research networks, programmes and projects;
  • disseminating research findings through our website and publications;
  • acting as a forum for academic and public debate by organising seminars, conferences and other events;
  • contributing to the design and development as well as the evaluation of social technologies in order to grasp better their future potential;
  • engaging with policy-makers to understand and respond more effectively to the challenges and opportunities digital media poses for citizenship

The CdC is an interdisciplinary research centre, combining research across technological and social-scientific domains, and theoretical, empirical and practice-based research.

The CdC aims to chart the challenges that new practices of digital citizenship pose to traditional principles that order authoritative decision-making and collective action, including distinctions between the public and private, the formal and informal, state and society, and the national, European and global. We are interested in research that focuses on what people and organisations are actually doing in relation to digital media and how they categorize their activities. By acknowledging that democratic practices and principles are always effectively contestable and variable, the Centre encourages innovative thinking and our research remains practically relevant.

Additional information about the Centre for Digital Citizenship and its parent institute, the Institute of Communications Studies, is available at the University of Leeds website.

If you are new to this area of research here is a reading list that will take you into the field:

  • Macintosh, A., Coleman, S. & Schneeberger, A. (2009). ‘eParticipation: The Research Gaps’. In Macintosh, A. & Tambouris, E. (Eds), Electronic Participation: Proceedings of First International Conference, ePart 2009, LNCS 5694. (pp.1-11). Germany: Springer-Verlag. ISSN 0302-9743 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              0302-9743      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
  • Macintosh, A. & Whyte, A. (2008). Towards an Evaluation Framework for eParticipation. Transforming Government: People, Process & Policy, 2(1), 16-30.
  • Coleman, S. (2007) ‘Doing It For Themselves: Management versus Autonomy in Youth E-Citizenship’, in Bennett, W.L. (ed.) Digital Media and Youth Civic Engagement, Boston: MIT Press
  • Macintosh, A., Adams, N., Whyte, A., and Johnston, J. (2007). ‘ePetitioning in the Scottish Parliament’. In Chen, H., Brandt, L., Gregg, V., Traünmuller R., Dawes, S., Hovy, E., Macintosh, A. & Larson, C. A. (Eds), (2007). Digital Government: eGovernment Research, Case Studies, and Implementation. USA: Springer (pp. 487-501). ISBN-13: 978-0-387-71610-7.
  • Coleman, S. (2007) ‘E-Democracy: the History and Future of an Idea’, in Quah, D., Silverstone, R., Mansell, R. and Avgerou, C. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Renton, A. & Macintosh, A. (2007). Computer Supported Argument Maps as a Policy Memory. The Information Society Journal, 23(2), 125-133.
  • Coleman, S. (2005) ‘The Lonely Citizen: indirect representation in an age of networks’, Political Communication 22(2): 197-214.
  • Coleman, S. (2004) ‘Connecting Parliament to the Public via the Internet: Two Case Studies of Online Consultations’, Information, Communication and Society 7(1): 1-22.
  • Whyte, A. & Macintosh, A. (2003). Representational Politics in Virtual Places. Journal of Environment and Planning, A, 35(9) 1607-1627.
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