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Distributed Citizenship in Local-Oriented Online Communities: A Behavioral Repertoire of Civic Roles Across 50 North American City Groups

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  • Fan, Yibin

Abstract

Local-oriented online communities increasingly serve as informal spaces where residents exchange local knowledge, discuss public issues, and encounter local news. Yet existing research often treats these communities as digital third spaces, with less attention to how civic labor is distributed among participants. This study understands these communities as components of local information infrastructures, examining how civic roles are distributed by analyzing year-long data from 50 highly active North American city subreddits in 2024. Focusing on 43,263 sustained users, we combine media-domain matching, LLM-assisted topic classification, latent profile analysis, and qualitative case comparison. The analysis identifies six behavioral civic roles: National News Commentators, Platform-Native Political Discussants, Local Civic Respondents, Cross-Scale Media Brokers, Local News Brokers, and Peripheral Generalists. The findings show that local-oriented online communities function as local information infrastructures which depend on uneven but complementary forms of resident participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Fan, Yibin, 2026. "Distributed Citizenship in Local-Oriented Online Communities: A Behavioral Repertoire of Civic Roles Across 50 North American City Groups," SocArXiv 29y4x_v1, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:29y4x_v1
    DOI: 10.31235/osf.io/29y4x_v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. MARTIN, GREGORY J. & McCRAIN, JOSHUA, 2019. "Local News and National Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 113(2), pages 372-384, May.
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