Abstract
The term ‘civic media’ embraces both media practices and media outcomes where these involve the civic engagement of communities in media production or use directed towards the common good, or the good of the commons. Such media are applied to a range of aims and activities designed to bring about progressive change or enact identities in a positive manner. This edited collection is designed to increase our analytical understanding of how mediated communities emerge and develop, using various technological tools to help people connect, organise and change in the interests of achieving particular outcomes. The editors have structured the contributions into six sections which each combines long academic essays with a number of short case studies which show how civic media are being used, applied and practised. The book begins with wide-ranging discussions about civic participation using digital media, with different views of their potential and scope. Further sections address the ways in which design interventions into civic processes can change the functions of civic systems, explore the role of play in civic participation and in resisting normalised power structures, examine the competencies necessary among the young for effectively navigating the digital spaces and structures of everyday life, look into what constitutes civic action when facilitated by mediated social networks and finally attend to questions of research and funding into civic media. From such examples as the Arab Spring, Occupy and the 38 Degrees activist organisation, it is clear that civic media can be important and effective, but the manifold implications of such media need broad, interdisciplinary discussion, and this book goes a long way towards providing it. Digitally networked action is not always focused, coherent and sustained. We need studies such as this to help refine our understanding of the variable relationship between collective and connective.