Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society: UK State-Media-Citizen Relations after the Snowden Leaks

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The project "Digital Citizenship and Surveillance Society'" will examine the governance of digital citizenship - i.e. civic agency reified through the use of digital media - in an era of omnipresent surveillance. The leaks provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden and published in the Guardian and elsewhere since June 2013 provide a unique historical opportunity for this research as they offer unprecedented insights into the workings and extent of digital surveillance. Through programmes such as PRISM (by the US National Security Agency) and Tempora (by the UK Government Communications Headquarters), state-based surveillance has targeted platforms and services that have become a vital part of the infrastructure of everyday citizen communication in the UK and worldwide. These revelations have implications for key aspects of digital citizenship across issues regarding the legal and regulatory framework of digital communications; technical infrastructures and technical standards; everyday interactions with digital communication and advocacy regarding communicative rights; and investigative journalism and press freedom.Therefore, within a cross-disciplinary and practitioner-focused framework, this project will examine the challenges for digital citizenship posed by the Snowden revelations through four interrelated work-streams: policy, technology, civil society, and news media. These four themes will be investigated through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods as well as participatory action research. The work-streams will collect data through desk research and field research that combine policy document analysis, technical and software analysis, focus groups, interviews and content and discourse analysis. The research will be complemented and supported by two workshops that will bring the project team together with other leading researchers and practitioners in the field. The first (September 2014) will be a stock-taking event to guide the fieldwork phase; the second (June 2015) will begin collaborative data analysis and prepare recommendations. Both will include a) 'tech hackathons' for the analysis of privacy enhancing infrastructures and tools, b) 'policy hackathons' for the analysis of privacy policies, and c) 'best-practices' sessions for the review of active citizenship and journalistic practices. These hackathons and practice sessions provide an innovative methodological aspect and add action research as a key component of methodological triangulation. Through detailed analysis of the data, the project will develop a comprehensive and integrated understanding of digital citizenship in light of the Snowden leaks. The workshops will facilitate academic-practitioner and expert-user interaction, the sharing of practices and ideas, and the review and analysis of concrete technical and policy solutions, and practical recommendations of interest to policymakers, technological developers, journalists, citizens and activists. The project will be hosted by the Cardiff's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC), one of the leading media and communication departments in the UK. The four work streams will be run by JOMEC staff in collaboration with co-investigators from other key research institutions. An advisory group including leading international academic experts and civil society organisations in the fields of communication policy, technology and digital rights will guide the research, review preliminary results, and contribute to workshops. Bringing together media scholars and computer scientists along with journalists, advocacy groups and technology developers will facilitate genuine multi-disciplinary academic-practitioner collaboration and lay the foundations for maximum future potential impact.