# 5-1 The Digital Citizenship Literacy Framework

In this digital era, with the prevalence of computers, communication, and consumer electronic products, easy access to mobile communications, the rapid growth of social media, and the surge in AI development, society faces new challenges and risks. These issues go beyond the digital divide twenty years ago; they are more about how we can take action safely and responsibly in a digital environment, and use digital technologies to create an open, fair, free, and inclusive digital civic society together.

The digital-native generation is exposed to all kinds of digital risks, such as Internet indulgence, digital sexual exploitation, online scams, lack of focus, and digital privacy infringement. Other generations, mainly middle-aged and senior people, also face these risks. Hence, digital citizenship has become increasingly important—an essential part of life-long education.

At present, the education system in Taiwan has gradually improved network infrastructure and hardware in schools. It has significantly enhanced students’ access to digital resources. However, there remains a lack of emphasis on digital citizenship in educational settings. Moreover, current digital education tends to focus on technical skills. While many digital and tech talents are being cultivated, there is less emphasis on digital communication and collaboration, information security, digital rights and responsibilities, and digital activism. This overemphasis on technology and a lack of focus on literacy results in tech professionals overlooking the social and environmental issues that their technologies might cause. It prevents them from becoming critical thinkers and responsible digital citizens. Moreover, discussions about digital citizenship education in Taiwan currently still center around media literacy without integration with tech education. These efforts are also primarily directed at levels below university (excluding universities). Digital citizenship education must shift from hardware and technology to literacy development. Then, citizens will be capable of addressing digital risks and challenges while knowing how to participate in society with the help of digital technologies actively.

Currently, the EU and Japan have been actively developing the concept and practices of digital citizenship. In addition to professional advice from the world’s governments and academia, the perspectives and suggestions of digital citizens in international civic tech communities are crucial. As a result, g0v Sch001, the Taiwan Pang Phuann Association of Education, the Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG), and Cofacts drafted the Digital Citizenship Framework together and called for feedback from civic tech contributors at the g0v community events, the 2024 g0v Summit, and the 2024 Civic Tech Workshop in Berlin for further revisions.

The Digital Citizenship Framework begins with one’s literacy, discusses the literacy required in a group, and finally outlines the advanced literacy needed at the social network level. It identifies the specific skills, content, and courses to be developed in access, analysis, communication and collaboration, creation, responsibility, and action for different levels of society as below:

## Personal Level

1. The ability to access information: Be able to familiarize themselves with browsing, searching, filtering, and managing various media, data, information, and digital content in an information-rich environment. Understand the purpose of one’s digital citizenship and manage one’s digital footprints to protect personal data and privacy.

2. The ability to analyze information: Enhance citizens’ information literacy by cultivating their ability of critical thinking, thereby enabling them to analyze and evaluate the authenticity, perspective, and credibility of various information while understanding its impact on both personal and societal levels.

## Group Level

1. Communication and collaboration: Be mindful of others’ states when interacting with a group of individuals in a digital environment, seek out relevant digital communities, and consciously select and join suitable ones. Use various digital tools to communicate and collaborate within these communities and reflect on digital footprints, group dynamics, and digital ethics throughout the process.

2. Creation: Being able to identify and analyze problems encountered in daily life and find digital solutions to them, and when necessary, form and manage a team, implement open-source principles, and integrate emerging technologies to solve them. During the creation process, citizens need to understand, consider, and reflect on relevant technological regulations and norms to make sure that their use of technologies aligns with democratic and human rights values, as well as ethical standards.

## Network Level

1. Responsibility: Understand one’s challenges and responsibilities in social systems in this digital era, including privacy, freedom of speech, and digital human rights. Reflect on and implement ways to protect these rights, thereby promoting digital equity and inclusion.

2. Take Action: Engage in social issues in digital environments and initiate actions or movements, including digital association and governance, open government oversight and collaboration, and digital civic movements.

We compile the content, abilities that citizens should develop, and give examples of course topics of Digital Citizenship Literacy Framework as the chart below:

> Find the original file at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yWZblXivv0YAR6nMe7X2bdKxAgfKGYADIIiT7INbKhM/edit?usp=sharing