The Online Public or Cybercitizen

Abstract

As both citizens and the state increasingly use online mediated environments, the nature of the public and thus public law has changed. As individuals and state actors use avatars as their online representatives in virtual environments, the notion of the cybercitizen is growing in importance. In these environments, rules, protocols and acceptable behaviours exist amongst participants and are no less respected by the community they affect for their current lack of legal status. As governments move more of their activities online the state is recognising and legitimising a new public, or at least a new expression of public. This paper looks at examples of the application of law to this new constituency and seeks to examine different ideas of identity and governance in an online mediated environment. It seeks to answer the question of whether the public can have coherent, congruent meanings across disparate areas of law, and to broaden the understanding of cyberlaw