Democratic Visions, Commercial Realities?

Convergence: The International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies, 1998

The developing 'global' network of computers, popularly referred to as the net, has sparked enthusiastic claims that this new medium holds the potential to revolutionise democracy. Central to this rhetoric is the concept of cyberspace. This virtual meeting place, created by computer networks, enables public interaction and information sharing. It is seen as providing the basis for the revitalisation of the public sphere and democracy. This article explores this prospect in relation to the political economy of the medium's ownership and control. I argue that the net's democratic potential is being limited by the rapid colonisation of cyberspace by capital. As a result, more than universal access to the net will be required to fulfil its democratic promise. Spaces for deliberative interaction in cyberspace also need to be protected and enhanced. Yet, democratisation beyond cyberspace may not automatically follow. Researchers and policy makers must pay greater attention to the systemic impediments involved. This, I conclude, is prerequisite to realising the democratic potential of the net.

Information, Communication & Society, 2001

Three prominent 'camps' have emerged within Internet democracy rhetoric and practice, each drawing upon different models of democracy: communitarian, liberal individualist and deliberative. Much interest has been shown in the former two camps by researchers and policy makers. This paper turns to an examination of the possible realization of the third camp's vision -that the public sphere of rational-critical discourse will be extended through cyberspace. This paper's method is to compare existing online discourse with a set of requirements of the public sphere developed from the work of Jürgen Habermas. Previous research of cyber-interactions reveals a number of factors limiting the expansion of the public sphere online. To explore how these limitations may be overcome, the paper examines an online democracy project that explicitly attempts to foster deliberation. It is shown how this initiative has been able to successfully surmount many of the impediments identi ed in less structured online deliberations, but that it has, along with similar projects, failed to gain a representative sample of the population and is increasingly marginalized by commercial sites, virtual communities of common interest, and liberal individualist political practices. The paper concludes that the expansion of the public sphere through the Internet requires not only developing deliberative spaces but also attracting participation from citizens who have been socialized within a commercialized and individualized culture hostile towards public deliberation.

ABSTRACT: The concept of public sphere is being challenged by new interesting questions: what’s the meaning of public sphere, today, in face of the changes introduced by Internet? Are those changes still compatible with the idea of publicity behind the conceptual classic models drawn by Habermas? Are still compatible with the strong notion and high normative demands that are implied in those models? The aim of this text is to reflect on the connections among democratic deliberation and the role performed by online news media in a context of growing pluralism. In order to perform that reflection, we intend to develop a theoretical discussion on the limits of the classic concept of public sphere in face of the social factum consisting in the increasing fragmentation induced by digital media. Today, most of political communication passes trough expert communicators. This communicative division of labor threatens to undermine the quality of communication. Will the many-to-many communication possible with the Internet, helping to produce political situations in which communicative asymmetry can be mitigated, decreasing the gap between citizens and representatives?

This paper explains Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere and applies his theoretical model to the Internet. By applying his public sphere model to the Internet, this paper clarifies the threats to democracy posed by modern mass media’s influence, U.S. media related law, electronic media regulations and Supreme Court precedents. This paper also explains how network neutrality enables a check and balance on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) commercial power. Without network neutrality, ISPs undermine American’s First Amendment rights. This is seen through how media ownership concentration decreases a diversity of viewpoints and the way ISPs block the free flow of information. This paper uses the 2012 U.S. presidential election to show how an idealized public sphere momentarily existed. Here, the Internet gives people the ability for citizen participation in debate; however, the Debordian spectacle relationship between citizens and the media shows how commercial interests, for the candidate’s publicity are often not in the public’s best interest.

This article reviews recent development in the area of political discourse and the Internet of interest to scholars in linguistics, discourse analysis and communications studies. It takes as its framework the concept of 'participation' and discusses how the Internet has altered modes of political participation, from the macro-politics of governance and political activism to the micro-politics of everyday life. It begins by making a distinction between discourse on the Internet and discourse about the Internet, showing how the way information technology is discursively constructed affects how it is used. It then goes on to consider how the Internet is changing citizen's participation in the public sphere though a transformation and redefinition of information, and whether or not computer mediated communication is suited to the kind of deliberative debate that fosters democracy. Finally, it discusses the formation and discursive practices of on-line

Asian Journal of Social Science, 2002

Javnost, 2004

The Internet has enabled many individuals and groups to articulate and contest positions on a myriad of local, national, and international issues, thereby extending the public sphere(s) of critical communication at the heart of strong democracy. However, a number of commentators argue that this critical communication is likely to become ever more restricted given the increasing corporate ownership and control of cyberspace. In this paper, I undertake a general investigation of this corporate takeover and the limits it places on the possibility of the Internet extending the public sphere. Focusing primarily upon the United States, I find that the increasing ownership of the networks content, code, and bandwidth by a few huge vertically and horizontally integrated media corporations is providing the basis for the control of online communication. Content discrimination is already being undertaken by some broadband network providers. These trends suggest that the Internet is being developed toward an arena where critical voices and practices will be increasingly marginalised. Given this situation, significant steps will be needed to secure and extend online critical communication. I conclude by suggesting a number of such steps, focusing upon legislative measures that should be urgently considered by Internet researchers and policy makers.

Internacional C onference Public Sphere Reconsidered: theories and practices

The concept of public sphere is being challenged by new interesting questions: what’s the meaning of public sphere, today, in face of the changes introduced by Internet? Are those changes still compatible with the idea of publicity behind the conceptual classic models drawn by Habermas? Are still compatible with the strong notion and high normative demands that are implied in those models? The aim of this text is to reflect on the connections among democratic deliberation and the role performed by online news media in a context of growing pluralism. In order to perform that reflection, we intend to develop a theoretical discussion on the limits of the classic concept of public sphere in face of the social factum consisting in the increasing fragmentation induced by digital media. Today, most of political communication passes trough expert communicators. This communicative division of labor threatens to undermine the quality of communication. Will the many-to-many communication possible with the Internet, helping to produce political situations in which communicative asymmetry can be mitigated, decreasing the gap between citizens and representatives?

Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, 2006

The internet has the capacity to facilitate the creation of new forms of civic engagement, but the realisation of these opportunities requires institutional and cultural reinforcement. The democratic character of e-citizenship and the equal distribution of online resources to the public require the fulfilment of four conditions: access, engagement (incorporating education, motivation and trust), meaningful deliberation and a link between civic input and public policy output. Furthermore, the gap between the main features of cyberspace and the inherent prerequisites of democracy, such as a finite space and a set of rules, create tensions that need to be negotiated politically. Although the empirical evidence available includes some encouraging signs regarding the future use of the internet for civic engagement, the existing limitations and obstacles mean that the new media will complement, rather than replace, the old media as a democratic public sphere.

Pacific Journalism Review, 11 (1), 2005

Much communications research is in agreement about the failure of the mass media to adequately facilitate a public sphere of open and reflexive debate necessary for strong democratic culture. In contrast, the internet's decentralised, two-way communication is seen by many commentators to be extending such debate. However, there is some ambivalence among critical theorists as to the future role of the internet in advancing the public sphere. On the one hand, the internet is providing the means for the voicing of positions and identities excluded from the mass media. On the other hand, a number of problems are limiting the extensiveness and effectiveness of this voicing. One of the most significant problems is the corporate colonisation of cyberspace, and subsequent marginalisation of rational-critical communication. It is this problem that I focus on in this article, with reference to examples from what I will refer to as the 'New Zealand online public sphere'. I show how online corporate portals and media sites are gaining the most attention oriented to public communication, including news, information, and discussion. These sites generally support conservative discourse and consumer practices. The result is a marginalisation online of the very voices marginalised offline, and also of the critical-reflexive form of communication that makes for a strong public sphere. I conclude by noting that corporate colonisation is as yet only partial, and control of attention and meaning is highly contested by multiple 'alternative' discursive spaces online.