Who should act, when, and where? The SCOPE framework for establishing responsibility and legitimacy in digital citizenship.

This article introduces the Scope of Civic Online Platform Engagement (SCOPE) framework to explain how users interpret and negotiate civic action on social media. It distinguishes between responsibility , which pertains to the obligation side of action (who should act) and legitimacy , which concern...

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Publicado en:Communication Theory (1050-3293) Vol. 36; no. 2; pp. 72 - 86
Autor principal: Gagrčin, Emilija
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Oxford University Press / USA May2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: Who should act, when, and where? The SCOPE framework for establishing responsibility and legitimacy in digital citizenship.
      aug:
        au: Gagrčin, Emilija
        affil: Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Bergen 5020, NorwayInstitute for Media and Communication Studies, University of Mannheim, Mannheim 68161, Germany
      su:
        Responsibility
        Legitimacy of governments
        Social media
        Civics
        Heuristic
        Digital technology
      sug:
        subj:
          Responsibility
          Legitimacy of governments
          Social media
          Civics
          Heuristic
          Digital technology
      keyword:
        boundary work
        copyrightHolder:International Communication Association
        copyrightYear:2026
        good citizenship
        heuristics
        inLanguage:en
        legitimacy
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        responsibility
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaf029
        social media platforms
        boundary work
        copyrightHolder:International Communication Association
        copyrightYear:2026
        good citizenship
        heuristics
        inLanguage:en
        legitimacy
        publisher:Oxford University Press
        responsibility
        sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaf029
        social media platforms
      ab: This article introduces the Scope of Civic Online Platform Engagement (SCOPE) framework to explain how users interpret and negotiate civic action on social media. It distinguishes between responsibility , which pertains to the obligation side of action (who should act) and legitimacy , which concerns who may act with authority and appropriateness. Building on affordance theory, boundary theory, and research on heuristics, SCOPE demonstrates how affordances shape the conditions for action. Users apply heuristics to interpret cues of visibility, relational ties, spatial mandates, and temporal urgency. These interpretations are then translated into boundary work, shaping responsibility and legitimacy judgments. To operationalize this process, the article proposes decision-making matrices that condense boundary judgments into simple two-question tests of when and by whom civic action is expected. The framework reorients the study of digital citizenship from abstract prescriptions of "good citizenship" to situated and recursive practices of boundary negotiation in platform environments.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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