Kabataang Pinoy Online: Digital Citizenship and Global Civic Engagement Among Filipino Young Netizens

The increasing ubiquity of the internet and other related digital technologies has resulted in greater global sociability of young people. Moreover, access to and engagement in online spaces have been found to enhance youth civic engagement. Thus, there is reason to suspect that young people who practice digital citizenship are likely to politically participate in global issues. This study focuses on the Philippines, which is one of the countries with the highest internet usage rates in the world. Using the sociology of technosocial life and digitally mediated model of mobilization as its theoretical anchorages, this study aims to determine the relationship between digital citizenship and the domains of global civic engagement (i.e., involvement in civic organizations, political voice, glocal civic activism). A total of 700 legal-aged young Filipino undergraduate students participated in this cross-sectional online survey study. Results suggest that digital citizenship significantly positively predicts all domains of global civic engagement. Moreover, being female, from a gender and sexual minority group, and living outside the National Capital Region were significant predictors of at least one domain of global civic engagement. Findings of the study highlight the salient role of digital technologies in shaping global citizenship and participation among young people.