This chapter aimed to investigate the predictive role of new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions of university students on their digital citizenship levels. The study was carried out with 124 university students studying in different departments of a state university in Türkiye, and the data were gathered using New Media Literacy Scale, Sosu Critical Thinking Dispositions Scale, and Digital Citizenship Scale. It was concluded that university students had high new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions while they presented moderate digital citizenship levels. Also, university students' new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions had a moderate and positive relationship with their digital citizenship levels. It was also concluded that university students' new media literacy levels and critical thinking dispositions significantly predicted their digital citizenship levels, and they together explained 17% of the total variance on their digital citizenship levels.
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The concept of citizenship has changed a lot in the last decades. While traditional citizenship is seen as a concept related to only public participation in the political processes (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004), today conceptualization of citizenship has become to include a wide range of civic behaviors like taking a role in voluntary activities and community, working to solve social problems and to enhance the quality of community life, and trying to find solutions for social injustices (Levine, 2007; Thorson, 2012; Zukin et al., 2006). Besides, with the rapid development in digital and internet technologies, citizenship practices have been transformed into digital citizenship while they were limited to the physical environment of individuals in the past (Berson & Berson, 2003; Choi & Park, 2023; Hermes, 2006; Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Zaff et al., 2008). New citizenship practices emerged thanks to rapid advancements in new digital technologies such as interaction with political parties, learning news, starting campaigns, organizing voluntary activities on new media platforms, etc. (Dow et al., 2021; Hermes, 2006). As opposed to only voting in the elections in the past, individuals can show their reactions in different ways on various online platforms today (Erdem et al., 2023). They can now have a chance to start online campaigns and organize people to protest something they do not like. It can be said that new digital and internet technologies allow individuals to demonstrate citizenship practices on digital media platforms in this century (Ribble & Park, 2019). Therefore, digital citizenship has started to be a vital competency in this century to enhance the quality of the social life and workforce (Erdem et al., 2023).
Digital citizenship can be defined as the appropriate, ethical, responsible, safe, and empowered internet and digital technologies use (Mattson, 2017; Ribble et al., 2004). According to Oxley (2010), digital citizenship refers to behavioral practices that ensure participating in the digital world in a legal, responsible, and ethical way. In a similar way, digital citizenship is defined by Altınay Gazi (2016) as a set of behaviors and practices which may fertilize the development of individuals and protection of social values in the digital world. While Ohler (2011) defines digital citizenship as a kind of character education in this digital world, Jones and Mitchell (2016) see it as tolerant and respectful behaviors towards other people which can make a positive contribution to civic engagement and they define it as using digital and internet technologies for civic engagement activities. Ribble (2017) proposes six digital citizenship elements which are digital commerce, digital communication and collaboration, digital etiquette, digital fluency, digital health and welfare, digital law, digital rights and responsibility, and digital security and privacy. In other words, it can be said that digital citizenship includes the concepts of safety, responsibility, security, and rights in the digital world (Ribble & Bailey, 2011) and it is a mixture of technical, ethical, political, and social factors (Ribble, 2012). Also, Choi (2016) states that digital citizenship comprises five elements, namely, internet political activism, technical skills, critical perspectives, networking agency, and local/global awareness.