Citizen Participation in a Democratic society 1

Citizen participation in a Democratic Society

Democratic and knowledge societies require critical individuals who are able to assume their
participatory roles as citizens. I will support this claim on the basis of three main arguments:
first, citizens interact through discourses some of them arguments, that must fit validity claims;
second, citizenship relates to how individuals are able to understand and produce meanings in
communicative interaction through language to build social identities, and third, citizens
participatory role in the public sphere might be expressed in the knowledge society through
participation mediated by technological and digital resources. I will describe succinctly that
these aspects of citizenship and social interaction supply a basic support for the ability to
produce and value arguments in society.
Firstly, in democratic states citizens have the right to be represented in the power spheres,
but also have the right to have their voices heard. The point is that as Van Dijk (2005) affirms
people do many social and political things when engaging in text and talk (p. 2), and
argumentative language is a way to convince others of particular perspectives and intentions
about the world. It means that being citizens in a democracy either in the public or in the private
spheres involves people in producing and valuing the validity of discourse content and
arguments produced. Habermas observes (1984) three validity claims: propositional truth,
normative rightness and expressive sincerity (p. 104). If citizens arguments are related to these
claims, they will answer basic inquiries such as: is content expressed in arguments true? Or,
given a normative context, do actions in arguments correspond with a legitimate counterpart in
social reality? (Habermas, 1984). What is implied here is that citizens that participate in
argumentative language exchanges are able to build convincing pieces of discourse and judge
others arguments supported on validity principles as those by Habermas.
Citizen Participation in a Democratic society 2

Secondly, it is equally important the fact that producing and understanding social
meanings is on the basis of peoples communicative interaction mediated by language (Halliday,
1978) and this supports how individuals shape their social identity in their communities. This
may be grounded on individuals personal needs and expectations as well as on how they
integrate to more institutionalized social relationships: family, school, mass media, labor and
professional fields. For instance, interactions entail, as Kramsch (1986) points out, negotiating
intended meanings (p. 367) in particular contexts and under specific circumstances where one
has to deal with judging intentions and negotiating points of view (Kramsch, idem). That is,
expressing ones own arguments and valuing others have to do with individual and social
identity issues. Buckingham (2008) has emphasized uniqueness and social senses of
identity (p. 1) to refer to how citizens manage to shape their own perceptions, knowledge and
interpretations of context realities, while embedded in diverse social interpersonal relations with
others. This takes place through the interactional mediating role of the language in the
construction of objective and subjective meanings of reality (Berger and Luckman, 2011).
Finally, not only language has a mediating role in how citizens arguments are built.
Knowledge society (NS) has driven citizens to assume new roles around new information and
knowledge mediating instruments, introducing citizens in diverse forms to connect to
information sources and knowledge processes. This sets forth the option to gain access to
information and knowledge, but also to produce them. How people access, select, classify, use,
distribute, share and store new information and knowledge is a vital aspect of citizen formation,
but just a facet of the phenomena in dealing with knowledge society. As stated by Mller and
Schocker (2010) there are more complex conditions in the relationship between human agency
and societal structures on the web (p. 19). This means that citizens have the option to be active
Citizen Participation in a Democratic society 3

participants in this KS: to be heard, to be read, to be critical and to be valued and criticized in
the public sphere.
In summary citizens become active participants in the public sphere of society when they
have guaranteed conditions and resources to express and share their own perceptions, ideas and
arguments. This is what I consider a potential possibility to get engaged also in a social
construction of shared meanings about sociocultural, political, economical standpoints that affect
communities directly. However, validity of citizens arguments has to do not only with context
conditions, but with how they have been able to both having opportunities to be active
participants in public discussions and becoming literate users of mediating languages necessary
to participate in such processes. Henceforth, citizens construing their identity: the why and
how of their expected roles in society.

Ivn Potier Hurtado
COL. ENRIQUE OLAYA HERRERA JM
BOGOT-COLOMBIA









Citizen Participation in a Democratic society 4




References
Berger, P.; Luckman, T. (2011). La construccin social de la realidad. Madrid: Amorrortou.
Buckingham, D. (2008). Introducing identity. In: Author (Ed.). Youth, identity, and digital
media. (pp. 1-24). [Reader Digital version]. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.001
Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action. Reason and the rationalization of
society. (V. I). [Adobe digital version]. Retrieved from:
http://blogs.unpad.ac.id/teddykw/files/2012/07/Jurgen-Habermas-Theory-of
Communicative-Action-Volume-1.pdf
Dijk, V. (2003). Discourse as Social Interaction. Volume 2. London: Sage Publications.
Halliday, M.A.K. (1994). El lenguaje como semitica social. Bogot: FCE.
Kramsch, C. (1986). From language proficiency to interactional competence. The Modern
Language Journal, 70 (4). Retrieved from:
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.unisabana.edu.co/stable/pdfplus/10.2307/326815.pdf
Mller, H., A.; Schocker-v., M. (2010). Research on the use of technology in task-based
language teaching. In: M. Thomas, H. Reinders (Eds.). Task-based language learning and
teaching with technology (pp. 17-40). New York, NY: Continuum International
Publishing Group.