Digital Empowerment as a Process for Enhancing Citizens' Participation

Abstract

The author proposes a citizen-and community-oriented approach to using information technology, whereby people are considered as participant members of the society. This empowering approach views people as subjects and actors who have abilities to develop, not as objects who lack these abilities and need one-way help from authorities. Empowerment of individuals and communities means increased control over life and coping skills. With information technology people gain new abilities and ways to participate and express themselves in a networked society. This can be called digital empowerment, which is not a direct consequence of having and using the technical facilities, but a multi-phased process to gain better networking, communication and cooperation opportunities, and to increase the competence of individuals and communities to act as influential participants in the information society. In this article empowerment is used in the sense of enablement – enabling people to do what is important to them, and enabling people to grow as competent subjects who have control over their lives and surroundings. When added to policies and programmes, this approach could bridge some of the democratic, cultural and content divides by bringing in more aspects.