A Discourse Theory of Citizenship

A Discourse Theory of Citizenship

This article discusses the concept of citizenship and how citizenship as a form of public engagement is crucial to democracy as a whole. The author, Robert Asen, presents a new view that citizenship is a dynamic mode of public engagement. The first section of the article discusses questions about public beliefs and perspectives. The second section of the article discusses how citizenship is a mode of public engagement. The third section discusses how public engagement must be examined and what can be learned from that analysis. The final section discusses how the concept of citizenship can be extended through the author's Discourse Theory.

The first part of the article begins by explaining how within the public and even within groups all sets of views or values are not universal. This means that it is a challenge to represent the views of groups. This also means that members of groups need to stand up for their views. For example, if you are part of a human rights organization, but do not approve of their stated views on a particular country, you should make your voice heard. This presents a challenge to group leadership because they have to make the group's stated views more general in order to not alienate any of the participants. In addition, people do not have a general view on how decisions should be made. For example, the article mentioned how the activist AIDS organization, ACT UP, had a great deal of trouble coming up with a consensus about whether or not they should testify in front of Congress. These facts mean that the views and perspectives of a group of people, their subjectivity, is more of an ever-changing process than a static group of opinions and should be treated as such. This idea is significant to communication as a whole because it helps understand why it is important to constantly make sure that no one's views in a group are being marginalized.

The next section discussed how citizenship is a mode of public engagement. It explains that citizenship is not a group of well-defined privileges that come with legally living in a country, but instead it is much more. It is a way of getting involved with the world around you. Citizenship is a process of dealing with the world that influences the views and beliefs of the public. It does not have to come from only voting; it exists in multiple modes. Some of these modes include consumer choices, work habits, and volunteer work. These sorts of actions could be more important than voting alone. This is because voting does not show your views in great personal detail and therefore does not always help advance your personal beliefs into public discussion. Voting only ascribes your views to one of two general view sets, which most people do not generally agree with completely. The other forms of citizenship, such as volunteering at a soup kitchen, can more