1. Democratic Citizenship
Kaitlyn McClaflin

2. What Does it Mean to Live In a
Democracy?
 Definition of a democracy: government by the
people, rule of the majority

3. What Does it Mean to Live in a
Democracy?
 Our country is a democracy. That means it is run by
the people for the people.
 Citizens in our democracy have rights
 Right to speak freely
 Right to practice our religion
 Right to vote
 Citizens in a democracy also have responsibilities
 Choose our leaders
 Keep informed about what is going on with our
government
 Help make their community a good place to live
 A democracy needs active citizens in order to work.

4. Reinventing Democracy- Shift of
Power from Corporations and
Government to Ordinary
Americans
Voter Initiative:
 Problem: Citizens have few opportunities to take the idea of
bring issues to public attention
 Solution: Citizens may enact or reject laws directly through the
voting booth rather than through the voting booth rather than
through elected officials
 How this works: Citizens gather a specified number of
signatures on a petition. An initiative then appears on the ballot,
and is enacted or rejected by popular vote.
 Why this is a good idea: Citizens can propose new laws, state
constitutional amendments, or city or county charter
amendments.

5. Reinventing Democracy- Shift of
Power from Corporations and
Government to Ordinary
Americans
Reclaim the Public Airwaves:
 Problem: Private broadcasters control what is the public owns. In return
for free licenses to use taxpayer property broadcasters give us a steady
stream of increasingly coarse, redundant, superficial programming and
exclusively decide who says what on our public airwaves.
 Solution: Congress should create a new broadcast vehicle, a national,
non profit, nonpartisan membership organization, Audience Network
would be granted one hour of prime time television and one hour of
drive time radio on every commercial channel each day
 How this works: It would function as a separate licensee, airing diverse
programming shaped by the membership, which would be open to all
citizens over age sixteen for a nominal fee.
 Why this is a good: This would redress the long standing
disenfranchisement that millions of viewers and listeners have suffered
under the current authoritarian government.

6. What is Your Role as a Citizen?
 Definition of a citizen: a person owning loyalty to
and entitled by birth or naturalization to the
protection of a state or nation
 Patriotic
 Children
 Citizen Action

7. Patriotic
 Definition of patriotic: feeling,
expressing or inspiring by love
for one’s nation
• Need to know the great cause of
American and why this country
is worth fighting for
• Ask not what your country can
do for you but what you can do
for your country.
• Progress of this country is a
result of what citizens have
done when gotten together and
have created a social movement

8. Children
 The right of children to
participate in society
including the right to
education, to diverse
sources of information,
and the freedoms to
associate, assemble and
to express opinions.
 Children as activists
 The lives of the young
people who participate in
these events were
changed forever
 Every child is entitled to
participate in making their
world a better place to live

9. Citizen Action
 In all that is happening in
the world today- how
involved should citizens
be in trying to actively
make a change?
 Everyone’s voice matters
 If we all work together on
a certain issue we can
make a difference
 Good citizens obey laws
and vote at election times
 What people do between
elections is what decides
weather elections are
meaningful.

10. Sources
 Democratic Revolution in an Age of Autocracy
 Civics Education: Patriotism or Skeptism?
 Children: Toward Their Civic Skills and Civic
Involvement
 Introduction to A Public Citizen’s Action
Manual