A Critical Look at the Impact of New Media on the Public Sphere

The concept of public sphere was first explained by Habermas, who pointed out that citizens in this neutral space between a private realm and a sphere of public authority were supposed to behave ‘with the freedom to express and publish their opinions – about matters of general interest’. In spite of the fact that public sphere should be neutral, Habermas argues that it faced a decline, especially with improvements in mass media. Numerous authors talks about this concern and outlines various aspects. Therefore, this essay will concentrate on how new media influences public sphere. Evaluating three articles, critical review implies different positions about new media’s impact on public sphere.

In “The virtual sphere: the internet as a public sphere”, Papacharissi claims that although new technologies are easily accessible, “moving political discussion to a virtual space excludes those with no access to this space”. It means that normally every citizen should have a chance to participate in the public sphere but in the virtual sphere it is not possible for everyone, as not every person has internet access. Therefore, this situation becomes similar to Habermas’ proposal about decline in public sphere because of the bourgeois, considering the fact that it was mostly white bourgeois men who were participating in discussions, while for example women were excluded. The similarity here is clear when Papacharissi outlines that online technologies are reachable and used by quite narrow amount of people and this availability of new media is comparable to Habermas’ idea discussed above. In other words, this accessibility to the internet “by small fraction of the population contributes to an electronic public sphere that is exclusive, elitist, and far from ideal”, which suggests that it is not that opposing from the bourgeois public sphere in earlier centuries. It is also indicated that “new technologies facilitate greater, but not necessarily more diverse, participation in political discussion since they are still only available to a small fraction of the population”. Yet some authors believes that “the internet is an easily accessible medium with low entry barriers”. However, Papacharissi’s article was written 16 years ago, which means it is outdated and may not apply to the concept that well, as internet access became much more available nowadays, yet not only Papacharissi, but also Kruse et al in “Social Media as a Public Sphere? Politics on Social Media” agrees with the statement that for some people it is not that easy to use new technologies and the internet: “While social media sites are free to join, a device and/or an Internet subscription are cost prohibitive for some”. Although at some point Kruse et al indicates that free access to the Internet is essential for development of better political discourse online..

Approachability to new technologies is not the only problem concerning authors. One of the reasons why internet has a negative impact on public sphere is that people do not express themselves because of the fear. Kruse et al argues that sometimes users might hesitate to honestly state their opinion about, for instance, their political learnings “for fear of online harassment and the potential effect it has on their employment or relationships with family and friends”. This means that some people do not want to affect the connection between them and someone they care about, as sometimes posting one’s point of view can lead to a conflict. Part of the individuals do not ‘self-censor’ their opinions when they participate in a discussion anonymously. Papacharissi assents to this idea as well, saying that “anonymity online assists one to overcome identity boundaries and communicate more freely and openly, thus promoting a more enlightened exchange of ideas”. Even if people have an opportunity to participate in a discussion anonymously, not everyone is willing to try, although “the internet has the potential to extend the public sphere, at least in terms of the information that is available to citizens”.

Kruse’s, Lisa M. et al “Social Media as a Public Sphere? Politics on Social Media” develops Habermas’ idea about hegemony in public sphere. Habermas implies that in modern times public sphere barely exists because of the money importance and power within mass media. Not only money, but also citizens’, who are assumed to be more powerful, opinions may stop others to express themselves. Apart from that, “news media inadvertently define which issues are newsworthy and deserving of public attention”. Kruse et al says that in this case, “civil discourse in the pursuit of truth is most certainly not occurring” and that “social media are not revitalizing a public sphere because the requisites for a public sphere are absent from social media”. Hence, according to Kruse et al, it is seen that there are many reasons why public sphere in new media does not actually work as it should, and regarding the fact that this article is recent, it can be assumed that public sphere is still witnessing a decline and that is the reason why this article is useful for understanding new media’s impact on public sphere.

Harper, in “The big data public and its problems: Big data and the structural transformation of the public sphere” agrees with the concept and states that people who fragmentize audiences “are quite happy to make power-laden normative judgments about who and what should be included in the conversation” . This problem becomes essential when talking about media’s impact on public sphere, whereas public sphere, as stated above, should be a neutral place where every citizen could be able to express himself. In his article, Harper highlights that new media and big data is mostly used not for improving public sphere, but for gathering information about “personal interests, demographic information and purchasing behavior” and for tracking “media consumption”. When that is done, it is easier to structure people and make sure that different messages would reach different individuals, and this is because of “the ability to target (and tailor) media messages according to our pre-existing values and beliefs”. However, this fragmentizing, according to Papacharissi, has negative aspect, as she claims that “as the virtual mass becomes subdivided into smaller and smaller discussion groups, the ideal of a public sphere that connects many people online eludes us”. Terje and Goldfarb write likewise that publics structuring implements unstable platform for discourses and it reduces individuals’ unity in public sphere.

Harper also talks about publics fragmentation created by big data and argues that this “has ushered in a new structural transformation of the public sphere: fundamentally reshaping the way we come together to make meaning”. In other words, by cause of new media the form of public sphere has changed. Harper discusses that this different type of public sphere is not a bad thing, especially when talking about fragmentized publics. The main problem Harper outlines about structured audiences in “The big data public and its problems: Big data and the structural transformation of the public sphere” is that it prevents people from sharing their ideas and opinions with those who are in other groups, as it is difficult to approach them. Similarly to what was mentioned before in Papacharissi’s article about how hegemony appears in public sphere, Harper also perceives the problem in hegemony as he states that “Big data cause problems in the public sphere not because they fragment public debate but, conversely, because they tend to impose a powerful hegemonic epistemology upon each fragmented public”. As this article is recent and it analyses individuals’ engagement in public discourse, it is helpful to realize how it relates to the contemporary public sphere.

All things considered, this essay analysed three main articles and critically reviewed how they have employed the concept of the public sphere. Through the evaluation of Harper’s, Papacharissi’s and Kruse’s et al articles we have reached a conclusion that although internet is an easily accessible virtual sphere, it does not necessarily make it a better public sphere. It is clear that Habermas’ concept is noticeable in all of the analysed articles and his idea about decline in public sphere still exists in contemporary world. The reason of this is mostly because new, digital media structures publics and hegemony in public sphere remains even now.