‘A democracy is based on the premise that public opinion should matter in deciding the course of society’ (Hauser, 1999: 1).
The Public Sphere has developed rapidly in the past 10 to 20 years, with ‘face to face’ debates changing to ‘screen to screen’, as people debate, discuss and articulate opinions and views with one another through typing on a keyboard and clicking a button to send. With this new space for the public known as the world-wide web, they are offered an alternative space, in which people who do not share the same views as the state and government are able to voice their opinions, which they would not have necessarily been able to do before. These new virtual coffee houses allow people immediate access to information, with multiple sources just one click away. This means that there is more political freedom; people are free to say what they want, voicing their opinions as well as bringing a participatory aspect to the public sphere. With the rise of social media, more and more people are finding ways to interact, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Known as ‘citizen journalism’, through these socials people are able to post and share stories live as they see something happening. Whether it is sharing an article, sharing a photo or a video, creating a ‘vlog’ or typing out a 180 character ‘tweet’, more and more people have the freedom to engage and interact. The mass media plays a massive role in this new digital public sphere however, influencing the online culture and the way in which we communicate. Although the public have the sense of freedom online, there is still the presence of the state and capital. As said by John Downey and Natalie Fenton in their article New Media, Counter Publicity and the Public Sphere, ‘horizontal communication between citizens is increasingly replaced by vertical communication between mass media, greatly influenced by both the state and capital, and consumers’ (Downey and Fenton, 2003: 186). This communication through the new media can be seen in an example on Facebook, in which the news organisation, the BBC, shared a video on their page to the public. The video, titled, ‘Being the Only Brexiteer on Campus’, had Facebook users from across the United Kingdom holding debates in the comment section on the topic of Brexit, as well as discussing political parties and their policies. By posting a video about a topic that the whole nation is interested in talking about, the media and the government are influencing how we engage online and communicate with the online public. However, political topics do not only bring about debate and mediated discussions (image 1). As said by Immanuel Kent in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ‘If we attend to the course of conversation in mixed companies consisting not merely of scholars and subtle reasoners but also of business people or women, we notice that besides storytelling and jesting they have another entertainment, namely, arguing’ (Calhoun, 1992: 1). Political discussion and certain views and opinions are not always what a large portion of the public agrees with, therefore some discussions turn into arguments and turn away from the main topic at hand, something that is seen to happen a lot on social media. Being that these platforms are ‘social’ spaces, there is not the same etiquette that is expected when face to face with another person. Political and other government issues are not always taken as seriously through social medias, with a lot of social media accounts turning government figures and certain situations into a joke, making the situation less serious and one that more people can engage with.
Image 1, BBC Public Facebook Page, Video: Being the Only Brexiteer on Campus
As people voice their difference in opinion, this creates ‘Counter Publicity’. Defined by Michael Warner, ‘Counterpublics are…formed by their conflict with the norms and contexts of their cultural environment, and this context of domination inevitably entails distortion. Mass publics and counterpublics, in other words, are both damaged forms of publicness, just as gender and sexuality are, in this culture, damaged forms of privacy’ (Warner, online source). With these counter public views and opinions, they are able to sometimes be brought into the main stream media, and be heard by a larger public who may have not thought in the same way. Therefore, these alternative public spheres create tension and threaten the stability of the public sphere, creating different ways for people to express themselves. The digitalization of the Public Sphere gave these people and groups who had a different way of looking at situations an area in which they could exist and engage with one another and try to enter main stream media.
A lot of alternative Public Spheres can therefore be found online, however before the world-wide web there were such groups known as pressure groups and environmental groups which have since moved online. These groups are a part of Civil society; between private and the state, but not in the public sphere, yet these groups helped to create counter publicity in the public sphere. Before the world-wide web, these associations would gather to discuss their views and try to get them into the main stream. One example of these non-government agencies (NGA’s) is Crisis, which helps homeless people to have a safe place to go for Christmas and give them somewhere to sleep, eat and relax. Now, having their own website and social media accounts (image 2) and expanding their group, they are able to recruit more volunteers and spread the awareness throughout the internet, especially through social media and getting onto news platforms. As said by Dounia Mahlouly in the online article Rethinking the Public Sphere in a Digital Environment: Similarities between the Eighteenth and the Twenty-First Centuries, ‘mainstream media maintain an impartial power over the dissemination of cultural and political discourses. Yet the emergence of the internet and social media provided information consumers with the opportunity to become information producers and to shape their cultural environment.’ (Mahlouly, online source). With the help of the online public and these alternative public sphere spaces, these NGA’s are given a better opportunity to be heard globally.
Image 2, Crisis Public Twitter Page
As said, Social Media plays a massive role in the Digital Online Sphere, which offers multiple ways in which you can spread either news, opinions, certain views and enable you to get these into the public sphere. Websites such as Twitter and Facebook allow the public to create profiles, whether it be for themselves or a profile about another person such as a celebrity, they can then start trends using a hashtag which can become a global trend, as well as creating Twitter voting polls, used to bring the public together, as well as posting pictures and videos, using audiences to help spread messages by either retweeting on Twitter or sharing the link on their Facebook pages. However, as said by Richard Butsch in Media and Public Spheres, ‘the face to face public sphere is increasingly replaced by a mediated public sphere where, “everyone can observe…but very few speakers can participate” (Butsch, 2009)’. With social media, although everyone is given a voice, celebrities and people in the public eye are given more of a voice to spread news stories and what is important to them, including political matters and their countries government. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has an extremely controversial Twitter account (@realDonaldTrump) in which he posts about important political matters, however has been known to have been in trouble over such tweets, making a lot of the public angry and upset. Although this may be an example of how social media may not be a positive for the Public Sphere, it is also allowing the public to know more about their state, their government and the politics of their country, something which may not have been possible if there was no Digital Public Sphere. Other websites which can change political views and government decisions are petition and crowdfunding websites, such as Change.org. As shown in the image below (Image 3), the website helps people to make public petitions which challenge the government and aims to change government policies and the example as shown below, the EU Tax on all sanitary products. Through the digitalization of the Public Sphere and media itself, more and more people’s voices are being heard.
Image 3, Change.org Website Front Page
The media, especially now online media, offers a mediated deliberation of such topics, helping spread news and therefore the public sphere across the globe. This digitalization of the Public Sphere shows the positive aspects of the internet and its effects on the public and the state.
