Monitorial Citizens or Civic Omnivores? Repertoires of Civic Participation Among University Students

Abstract

In present-day societies, the extent to which young people still participate in civic life is an important matter of concern. The claim of a generational "decline" in civic engagement has been contested, and interchanged with the notion of a "replacement" of traditional engagement by new types of participation, and the emergence of the "monitorial citizen" who participates in more individualized ways. Concurrently, this study explored the assumption of a "pluralization" of involvement, advancing a new concept: the "civic omnivore", characterized by an expanded civic repertoire. Drawing data from a sample of 1493 Belgian and Dutch university students, we identify five repertoires of participation: disengaged students, classical volunteers, humanitarian citizens, monitorial citizens, and civic omnivores. (Hooghe, 2003a;McFarland & Thomas, 2006;Verba, et al., 1995).It follows that if such a generational shift is occurring, it could have detrimental consequences for Western societies -as large stocks of social capital are positively associated with healthy democracies, high levels of institutional performance, economic wealth, and social well-being (Knack & Keefer, 1997;Putnam, 1993). Consequently, the stakes are high, and a growing number of studies worldwide are devoted to assessing the level and nature of social and political involvement among youth (see, among others, Flanagan, et al

Standby citizens: diverse faces of political passivity

“…By contrast, empirical analyses of the logic behind seemingly growing passivity have been rare (Hooghe and Dejaeghere, 2007;Hustinx et al, 2012).…”

Theorizing Citizenship in Citizen Journalism

“…Graber 2004;Lund 2006;Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007;Porto 2007;Deuze 2009aDeuze , 2009bPapacharissi 2010;Coleman and Blumler 2012;Hustinx et al 2012;Tewskbury and Rittenberg 2012). Schudson's conception, rather than seeing the apparently low levels of routine attention to information of civic and political significance as indicative of citizens being uninformed and disengaged, instead suggests that citizens are simply appropriately and strategically selective in what they pay attention to.…”

“…Instead of constantly trying to remain informed "the monitorial citizen decides to keep his or her surveillance of the political system to a minimum, and decides to intervene only when he or she considers that it is absolutely necessary" (Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007, 251). Empirical research in this area has centered on the nature of monitorial citizens in terms of the extent and nature of their levels of engagement with information and political participation, with studies in several countries finding evidence of distinct groups of citizens whose engagement and participation is selective (Lund 2006;Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007;Hustinx et al 2012). Criticism of the monitorial citizen model includes concerns about the passivity of citizens, both in terms of whether the extent and nature of monitorial citizens' selective engagement is sufficient to sustain democracy-for instance in the sense of the extent to which citizens are actually effectively able to understand, interpret and act upon information when only partially engaged-and also whether the model fails to differentiate between different kinds of passivity whereby presumed monitorial or "stand-by citizens" (Amnå and Ekman 2013) who have the desire and capacity to become informed and engaged when they decide to, need to be differentiated from those unwilling or unable to participate.…”

“…This alternative theory posits a distinction between what are called "dutiful" citizens, who engage in traditional citizenship practices, and "actualizing" citizens who conduct their citizenship in a variety of non-traditional ways such as political consumerism (Bennett et al 2009, 107;Hustinx et al 2012). Within this model the idea is that actualizing citizens are a lot less likely to use traditional media, and much more likely to use online and social media as sources of information, discussion and participation (Bennett et al 2012).…”

“…(Faulks 2000, 6) Outside of the citizen journalism literature, debates about what constitutes citizenship are a major feature of a significant body of academic literature (Putnam 2000;Annette 2010). Research has challenged idealistic conceptions of citizen behavior in terms of traditional practices of engagement and participation, looking at the variation in both the degree to and means by which people practice their citizenship (Amnå and Ekman 2013;Eveland 2004;Graber 2004;Henn and Foard 2012;Hooghe and Dejaeghere 2007;Hustinx et al 2012;Livingstone and Markham 2008;Lund 2006;Schudson 1998;Walker 2002), particularly in relation to new media technologies (Bennett et al 2009;Coleman and Blumler 2012;Gerodimos 2008;Gil de Zúñiga et al 2012;Ikeda and Boase 2011;Kaufhold et al 2010;Pasek et al 2009;Scheufele and Nisbet 2002). Such literature highlights tensions within debates around citizenship, for instance in the distinction between civic and political citizenship (Heater 2004a(Heater , 2004bTheiss-Morse and Hibbing 2005;Annette 2010), revealing that the concept of the citizen is not an uncontested label to simply be tacked onto journalism.…”