Civic engagement, youth, and community: The role of place, education, information, and technology in shaping civic and political discourse (SIG‐KM)

The panel will examine civic engagement and community‐local, transnational, and virtual, and its impact on political participation of young people. Discussion will highlight the role of information, education, technology in reshaping the boundary between personal and public information space. Panelists will redefine civic engagement in this changing landscape as it affects our understanding of place and of political participation of young people, including the role of higher education, public policy, and the presentation of government information in building an informed and active citizenry. As new information channels emerge in civic and political discourse, issues of trust and authority in e‐government and non‐governmental sources arise for the public and for providers of access to government information. The panel will address credibility in government information sources and examine voter use of the Internet and its impact on their decision‐making processes. The interplay of new technology in the political process and the public information space will inform the presentations, including how digital tools have created new networks for political discourse; changed participation by voters, candidates, and campaigns; and enabled the use of participatory Web 2.0 technologies in the design of government and library websites. Finally, the panel will assess current digital tools, highlight the design tension between universal access and digital environments, and stress the importance of meeting human needs through participatory design in the future development of digital environments.