A Layered architecture to model digital citizenship rights and opportunities

We live in a society shaped by information and communication technologies, a continuous interplay between what happens in the physical world and online. This fact asks the “homo digitalis” (the “digital person”) to reconsider and reshape her/his citizenship and sovereignty to face with this “augmented” context, where rights and obligations have to be properly declined to meet technology opportunities. These opportunities, however, challenge the very idea of citizenship and the exercise of underlying rights. The authors propose the “rainbow of digital citizenship rights” to slice aspects of digital citizenship in conceptual levels. The framework consists of abstraction layers spanning from basic network access up to the highest “right to active involvement in policy-making.” This article describes the framework and its application to analyze the “Public consultation on the fundamental principles of the Internet” promoted by the italian Ministry of Education, work performed with the authors’ “Digital Citizenship and Technocivism” course students.