earticle

영어

The purpose of this study is to analyze democratic citizenship which is needed to establish electronic democracy in the information age. As society is computerizing, citizens can use more political information and also have more communication channels that enable them to transmit their ideas to the representatives or fellow citizens. Thus, the control power of citizens over policy-making processes is highly getting increased. It can be reasonably assumed that the increased civil power in the information society is making citizenship more important factor than political institutions and structure in operating electronic democracy. So if we are to enhance democracy through information communication technologies (ICTs), we need to develop new democratic citizenship as well as to reform political institutions and processes in cyberspace. For this reason this study is focused on democratic citizenship in cyberspace. Citizens in cyberspace tend to have more pluralistic value systems, to act on not social norms and practices but their own judgements, and to be more sensitive to their own rights. This means that liberalistic perspectives are diffused in the information society whereas communitarianistic perspectives are lessened. Thus, it is reasonable to reshape democratic citizenship on the bases of liberalistic perspectives for electronic democracy. Accordingly, citizens must have civic autonomy in cyberspace which some liberalists, such as W. Kimlicka and W. A. Galston, emphasize. Cyber democratic citizenship whose core is civic autonomy, have three elements; knowledge, value and attitudes, and skills. Cyber citizens must know the characteristics of cyberspace, their political rights and social roles, the structure and processes of digital democracy and contemporary social issues. Cyber citizens also must have attitudes to reflect and correct their prejudices and opinions, to tolerate opinions different from their owns, to observe 'harm principle' which suggests the limit of personal liberty, and to trust fellow citizens. Finally, cyber citizens must have the abilities to seek and interpret information which is needed to solve specific problems, to make reasonable judgement on the base of given information, to communicate effectively with fellow citizens or the representatives, and to participate in political precesses. It is the tasks of civic education in the information society to cultivate citizens with autonomy. Contrary to virtue, civic autonomy cannot be acquired by training or indoctrination. However, we can grow it by repetitive experiences to participate actively in political processes in cyberspace. So it is need to construct public cyberspace which is designed to make us to experience political participation on educational purposes. If we keep on gathering information from it needed to solve our problems, exchanging our ideas with other people on the basis of gathered information, making our opinions according to the exchanged ideas, and participating in decision-making process in the public cyberspace, we could, then, bring up our civic autonomy. It is critical to the development of democracy that civic education is strongly committed to bring up autonomic citizens in the information age.

한국어

발달된 정보 통신 기술을 활용하여 민주주의를 질적으로 고양시키려는 시도는 주로 민주주의의 정치 과정과 구조의 변화에 초점을 맞추어 논의가 진행되어 왔다. 그러나, 정치적 의제에 대한 시민의 통제력이 확대되는 정보화 사회에서 민주주의가 질적으로 성숙되려면, 그에 걸맞는 시민의 자질과 능력이 요구된다. 따라서 사이버 공간에서 활동하게될 시민들에게 요구되는 시민적 자질과 특성이 무엇인지에 대한 논의가 필요하다. 이러한 문제 의식 하에 본 연구에서는 정보화 시대에 민주주의가 원활하게 운영되기 위해서 요구되는 시민성이 무엇인지를 탐구하려 한다. 본 연구에서는 정보화 시대에 요구되는 민주 시민성을 개념화하기 위해 자유주의자와 공동체주의자의 시민성(citizenship)에 대한 논쟁을 사이버공간으로 확대하려 한다. 1980년대부터 격렬히 진행된 자유주의자와 공동체주의자의 논쟁은 ‘시민적 자율성(civic autonomy)’ 혹은 ‘시민적 덕성(civic virtue)’이라는 시민성을 개념화하는 두 가지 기본틀을 확고히 구축해 주었다. 본 연구는 사이버 공간에서 요구되는 민주 시민성을 시민적 자율성으로 개념화하는 것이 타당한지 혹은 시민적 덕성으로 개념화하는 것이 타당한지를 탐구한다. 그리고 구체적인 정보화 시대의 시민성의 구성 요소가 무엇이며, 그것이 어떻게 함양될 수 있을 것인지를 모색해 보려 한다.