Internet as a Hope or a Hoax for Emerging Democracies: Revisiting the Concept of Citizenship in the Digital Age

This paper revisits the existing literature on the concept of citizenship in digital age. It provides a detailed discussion on the proponents and opponents of technological determinism. The paper should be read as an effort to reinitiate an important debate in the scholarship, which has been largely undermined while studying the Internet phenomenon in the information age. Thus, instead of offering a solution-oriented conclusion, the paper sets the stage to invite mass media and communication scholars’ attention back to revisit the important ideological concepts, so as to evolve and improve our existing theories on communication and change in the society.