The Construction of Digital Citizenship Meaning among Informatics Students as Aspiring Technology Professionals

Abstrak

This study aims to comprehensively understand the construction of digital citizenship meaning and the ethical-social responsibility of Informatics students as prospective technology professionals from the perspective of Civic Education. This study employed a qualitative approach with an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) design. The research was conducted at the Department of Informatics Engineering and Computer Science, Politeknik Negeri Ujung Pandang, involving 15 active sixth-semester students as key informants selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed systematically through five stages of IPA analysis. Results: The data analysis produced four superordinate themes that reconstruct the meaning of digital citizenship: 1) Digital citizenship as ethical awareness in digital space; 2) Reconstruction of Informatics students' identity from technology users to technology creators; 3) Technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) ethics as a form of digital responsibility; and 4) The foundation of society-oriented technology. The informants construed that a single line of programming code carries direct social consequences for the public, requiring technology development to mitigate algorithmic bias, maintain the transparency of intelligent systems, and ensure the protection of user data privacy. This study successfully reconstructs the meaning of digital citizenship from merely "polite internet behavior" into "ethical-civic responsibility in technology design." Future technology professionals must possess a civic orientation that is internalized into every system and program code they create.