Dear Colleagues,

The spread of media ecology and the participatory culture has increased over the last several years. The world health crisis in which all global citizens have been involved presents a new post-confinement scenario that requires new perspectives for cyber-connection and the user empowerment. Thus, the digital environment and, specifically, social media provide the new basis for bringing citizens closer to a continuous, ubiquitous, and international network connection—a context where data and 5G technologies take on significant meaning, modifying pre-existing communication codes.

In their infinite possibilities, digital and social platforms introduce new ways to relate, be informed, contribute in community, create and share content, learn intellectually, etc. Thus, digital immersion requires citizens who are empowered and competent with the media, taking into account active participation across borders and civic commitment (Catalina-García, García-Jiménez, & Menor-Sendra, 2019). In this sense, social media have become a priority medium for the Internet which has quickly come to play a leading role in the spaces of communication, socialization, consumption, and participatory learning (Redon-Pantoja, 2019).

Since these platforms tend to transform the ways in which users are interconnected by considering our structures, formats, and contents that generate a unique and innovative citizen engagement, a new horizon for the understanding of human relations is proposed, from how interpersonal skills are exercised on the Net, to how prosocial behaviors are developed in each of the collectives and online communities (García-Galera, Fernández-Muñoz, & Porto-Pedrosa, 2017). Therefore, in an asynchronous way, the current cyberconnected society is in a flow of data exchange transformed into photography, video, text, themes, and trends—stories and narratives that both individually and collectively generate different currents such as clicktivism or the digital leisure (hanging out) (Buckingham, 2008; Amante & Amante-Mendes, 2017; Cornelissen, Karelaia, & Soyer, 2013).

However, despite the fact that the Net has become the new Agora of the 21st century, the mere use of the Internet does not imply associations that guarantee success. Media literacy actions must be carried out on the new Web environments and platforms, where minimum basic skills are considered in order to face increasingly latent phenomena: fake news, infoxication, grooming, sexting, sharenting, influencers, and cyberbullying, among others (Orso, Federici, Copetti, Vetrugno, & Bove, 2020; Wood & Wheatcroft, 2020; Van-Ouytsel et al., 2020; Kopecky, Szotkowski, Aznar-Díaz, & Romero-Rodríguez, 2020; Wellman, Stoldt, Tully, & Ekdale, 2020)

The scope of this Special Issue is to provide researchers with a space to deepen the dynamics that are transforming today's global and digital citizenship towards a new scenario for the empowerment and development of increasingly needed (trans)media competences. It is about the study of individual and collective online behaviors and actions that are generated in social media, discovering emerging phenomena and communities.

Submitted papers should be based on rigorous, high-quality quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods research, and intersectional and comparative analyses contributing new insights and developments into the topics addressed. Papers based on research with under-represented, minoritized, or marginalized groups or specific social contexts are particularly encouraged.

This Special Edition will focus on (but is not limited to) the following topics:

• Social media and empowerment;
• Social media and activism;
• Social media and interpersonal relationships;
• Social media and digital citizenship;
• Educommunicative social media;
• Social media and infomedia;
• Social media and influencers;
• Social media and (trans)media competences;
• Prosocial cyber-citizenship;
• Participatory culture in social media;
• Citizen-generated content.

Dr. Ignacio Aguaded
Dr. M. Amor Pérez-Rodríguez
Ms. Arantxa Vizcaíno-Verdú
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Social media
• Media empowerment
• Cyber-connected world
• Media competence
• Digital citizenship
• Participatory culture