The Aspen Institute

Networks and Citizenship: Using Technology for Civic Innovation, the Report of the 2011 Forum on Communications and Society (FOCAS), addresses two questions: (1) What does citizenship look like in an era of digital networks? and, (2) What are the emerging roles of individual citizens and institutions in this changing environment? Written by Rapporteur Jeffrey Abramson, Networks and Citizenship details the use of information and communication technologies to enhance the public sphere, provide access to information (open-source and open-data networks), connect citizens and government, create global networks, globalize and localize citizenship and use crowd sourcing as a self-governing process.