The location of culture in cognitive capitalism era. Notes for a discussion on digital citizenship

Culture plays a key role as an engine of social change and in development processes. Now, in cognitive capitalism, the commodity of the immaterial constraints diversity and pluralism, homogenizes imaginaries and annuls popular traditions under the pressure of a hegemonic and totalizing mono-discourse. Southern countries, expressions of minorities or third sector media practices, for example, are silenced or displaced to the background, preventing the development of the poor, the displaced or the different. However, the New Technologies of Information and Communication (NICTs) offer a new scenario where citizens can increase participation and local empowerment, keys to the health of democracy. Thus, the informational capital that the Internet provides in terms of participation and citizen cooperation are essential for development and social change. Now, these processes of appropriation of the NICTs, by the citizens, are mediated by a series of tension or dialectical axes. To transcend these difficulties that the digital environment poses about democracy it is necessary to look for theoretical-methodological models of complex mediation that open up public spaces and allow the local empowerment of citizens. In this sense, a series of action lines are proposed to elaborate communication and culture policies that contribute to the development of an active and participatory digital citizenship.