Conclusion and Bibliography

To conclude, traditional print media is not as in demand as it once was 10-20 years ago. With the rapid development of technology and the digitalisation of the media, has the term ‘Public Sphere’ become outdated too? It has been argued that the ideal Public Sphere can be found on ‘the web’, providing a new dominant public sphere, one in which all have a voice and all have an opportunity to influence and make change. With Habermas’ term ‘Public Sphere’ or Öffentlichkeit meaning places in which the public can go to articulate and openly discuss opinions and views, this tells us that the digital public sphere has simply given a new ‘place’ for which many more people are able to go to, or log on as such, and do the same. As said in the book The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age, ‘maps help us make sense of the world, much as links do, and that it is dangerous to take both for granted…maps mediate the way we experience reality’ (Turow and Tsui, 2008: 179). The traditional print media, although not in such high demand, is still distributed nationwide every day, as is the news online, therefore the term ‘Public Sphere’ still encompasses its original meaning, there are now more places for the public to voice their opinions. The digitalisation has enabled people to spread news in a quicker fashion than previously, however the world-wide web should still be considered as a Public Sphere; just an online version.

Bibliography:

Butsch, Richard (2009) Media and Pubic Spheres, Palgrave Macmillan

Calhoun, Craig J. (1992) Habermas and the Public Sphere, MIT Press

Downey, John and Fenton, Natalie (2003) New Media, Counter Publicity and the Public Sphere, Article

Fenton, Natalie (2010) New Media, Old News: Journalism & Democracy in the Digital Age, SAGE Publications

Habermas, Jürgen (1992) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, MIT Press

Hauser, Gerard A. (1999) Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres, University of South Carolina Press

Loader, Brian and Mercea, Dan (2012) Social Media and Democracy: Innovations in Participatory Politics, Routledge

Nikolic, Vladan (2016) Independent Filmmaking and Digital Convergence: Transmedia and Beyond, Taylor & Francis

Squires, Catherine (2002) Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres, Article

Turow, Joseph and Tsui, Lokman (2008) The Hyperlinked Society: Questioning Connections in the Digital Age, University of Michigan Press

Online Sources:

Benkler, Yochai (2012) ‘The networked public sphere’: framing the public discourse of the SOPA/PIPA debate’, Online Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/video/2012/may/15/yochai-benkler-networked-public-sphere-sopa-pipa

Ding-Tzann, Lii (1998) Social Spheres and Public Life: A structural Origin, Research Article, Online Source:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/026327698015002005

Hindman, Matthew, ‘What is the Online Public Sphere Good for?’ Online Source:

http://groups.dowire.org/groups/exchange/files/f/18730-2010-10-04T030532Z/hindman_online_public_sphere_pre.pdf p.1-29

Hosein, Gus (2016) ‘There’s Still Time to Stop the Surveillance Society’, Online Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/18/government-collecting-personal-data-surveillance

Mahlouly, Dounia, Rethinking the Public Sphere in a Digital Environment: Similarities between the Eighteenth and the Twenty-First Centuries, University of Glasgow, Online source:

https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_279211_en.pdf

Sunstein, Cass (2017) ‘Neither Hayek Nor Habermas’, Online source:

https://123slide.org/neither-hayek-nor-habermas-cass-sunstein

Warner, Michael, Publics and Counterpublics, Online source:

https://counterpublics.wikispaces.com/

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