The distribution of music throughout the internet creates a platform that generates a global public sphere on the web with social cultural and political implications. However judging from what Habermas has stated he interprets this as a face to face conversation ignoring the technological advancement and the ability to communicate with more people further away around the world. Thanks to the internet we are able to form communities with people all over the world and talk about a variety of different topics. In relation to music however I would like to focus on one aspect of its discourse which stems from YouTube. When the website became highly popular and people used it to listen to music or watch music-videos it can be stated that the comment section acted as the space for the discourse regarding given video or song. From my understanding Habermas interpreted the public sphere as a face to face conversation as it is most likely the best way to carry out a conversation and articulate each opinions. To which I agree to some extend as when you look at YouTube comments on songs more than often these comments will be one line long which doesn’t contribute as much as a face to face reaction. However over the past couple of years the popularity of reaction channels has risen. The essence of these channels is pretty much people recording themselves listening to either albums or songs for the first time and capturing the first reactions and thoughts regarding just heard or watched music. They often dissect the music and elaborate their feelings or opinions. Due to these videos where people can hear the original content and watch someone react to new music generates a new kind of interaction where you can somewhat relive the first moments of listening to an album. The comments under these videos are often more articulated which moves the engagement of the viewer to discuss said album in the comment. The images below are from a reaction video to The Weeknd’s Dawn FM album.
This format of videos spreads the general reception of an album much quicker than it would have otherwise. Instead of the album being played on the radio or magazine reviews being released days after the release, the reaction videos thanks to the simple format which usually requires less editing makes the time between the release of music to the video being out significantly shorter. More than often said videos are released on to the platform within a day or sometimes hours, however there are many different factors that can easily delay a release of such videos which delays the conversation people would have regarding the album even further. Due to that people have been gravitating to alternative platforms or services where they can discuss their thoughts pretty much instantly. A good example of such service would be Discord it’s a voice video and text chat app. According to their website there are tens of millions of users. The ability the service provides is creating so called servers or channels which require an invite in order to get in and start chatting with other members. With this I believe the issues of why Habermas didn’t take the digital public sphere into much consideration as now people from across the world can talk to each other almost as if they were in the same room. There isn’t a limit on how many people can take part in one debate which makes it a great way to discuss opinions and feelings based on heard albums. Most content creators on YouTube create their own discord channels for their audience to join. Although I have criticized Habermas and how he has seemed to believe everyone had a say in the public sphere as it wasn’t the case in the 18th century. This puts a question on how inclusive those kinds of digital spheres are as they are locked away by an invite which theoretically makes them private spaces. However the invite to such communities are freely accessible to the public, they’re usually found in the descriptions of YouTube videos in a form of a link.