Learning to Become an e-Citizen: the European and Italian Policies

It is almost generally acknowledged that the application of ICTs may represent a strong vehicle for social innovation and progress in the hands of governments, of political representatives and of citizens. So, when the focus is on e-Democracy, which nowadays represents one major strategic approach of ICT applications, it must be interpreted and explored in connection with the more general, traditional and philosophical concept of Democracy. In the World Wide Web context the citizen becomes an e-Citizen: this means that citizens must learn how to turn real citizens of an electronic community and how to use the Internet possibilities in order to become aware of what e-Citizenship implies.