[Air-L] Social media as part of the public sphere?

[Mathieu ONeil]

Yes, why offlist?
Lincoln Dalhberg has written several articles about the Internet as a (Habermasian or not) public sphere, he also edited a book called Radical Democracy and the Internet which may suit your purposes (once again before the term "social media" became popular but the issues are the same)

There is also an article by Froomkin about Usenet as a form of PS (2003) and more recently some Scandinavian scholars wrote a paper about whether WP conformed to deliberative rationality, may be too specific for you.

cheers

Mathieu
--
****


________________________________________
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] on behalf of Nathaniel Poor [natpoor at gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 1:29 PM
To: Oriol Poveda
Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org list
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Social media as part of the public sphere?

Oriol your question is a bit problematic, because of course social media can be considered a public sphere -- it just depends on how you want to define these things.

The public sphere was supposed to be (with all of the caveats from Calhoun's great collection) where people discussed things without regard to social standing but actually had several restrictions and caveats, and then was overwhelmed by advertising (it's been a while since I've read it though).
The online world is just like that (with lots of exceptions and disagreements of course). Usernames so we might judge what a person says, but we don't know who they are, and of course digital divides and skill divides and access divides and such. And much of it is now driven by advertising and commercial interests, it didn't use to be that way. (If anything, perhaps it could be argued that Twitter is far more open, but spaces like Facebook with privacy settings can work in a different manner due to reach.)

I don't think something that can be dealt with (albeit simplistically) in a paragraph would get an anthology, perhaps just a paper (now I will spend about two days fearing I've insulted someone who worked really hard to get such an anthology out and is on-list). You could have an anthology of examples, but the question itself isn't very interesting.

Instead of just "the public sphere" (emphasis on "the"), I might consider a public sphere, public spheres, counter-publics, and other things, all in one big mix.

Here's my probably horribly outdated paper based on my dissertation (written in 2003) from before the term "social media" was a thing, but it's about a social medium and the PS (and well really mechanisms of code and norms, I think, I wonder if I cite Lessig). Might be useful for the cites and which papers have cited it.
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol10/issue2/poor.html
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites=933556333926564292

-Nat.



On Jun 25, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Stine Gotved wrote:

> Why offlist?
> Hopefully, you'll make a summary for the list, then.
> Good luck
> :)
> Stine
>
> And take a look at this:
>
> Valtysson B (2012) Facebook as a Digital Public Sphere: Processes of
> Colonization and Emancipation. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism &
> Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information
> Society, 10(1), 77­91.
>
>
>
> On 24/06/13 19.11, "Oriol Poveda" <poveda.aoir at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was wondering if someone knows of an anthology or similar devoted to
>> discussing if social media can or cannot be considered part of the public
>> sphere (understood in Habermasian terms).
>>
>> If you have any suggestion, please email me offlist at
>> poveda.oriol at gmail.com, thank you!
>>
>> Oriol
>>
>> --
>>
>> Oriol Poveda
>> PhD student in sociology of religion
>> Uppsala university, Sweden
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>>
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/

-------------------------------
Nathaniel Poor, Ph.D.
http://natpoor.blogspot.com/
https://sites.google.com/site/natpoor/

_______________________________________________
The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org

Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
http://www.aoir.org/