DOCSLIB.ORG

The Impact of Internet on the Public Sphere and on the Culture Industry

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Impact of Internet on the Public Sphere and on the Culture Industry View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Osuva UNIVERSITY OF VAASA Faculty of Humanities ICS-programme András Szabó (p87336) The Impact of the Internet on the Public Sphere and on the Culture Industry A study of blogs, social news sites and discussion forums Master's Thesis Vaasa 2007 Table of contents 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 5 1.1 Internet - an unfulfilled promise?........................................................................... 6 1.2 The internet, the public sphere and (post-)modernity ............................................ 7 1.3 The internet does matter......................................................................................... 8 1.4 Western traditions................................................................................................. 10 1.5 Theories and technologies.................................................................................... 11 2 THEORIES OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND THE CULTURE INDUSTRY........ 12 2.1 The bourgeois public sphere ................................................................................ 12 2.2 The theory of communicative action.................................................................... 16 2.3 Civil society (in the theory of communicative action)......................................... 18 2.4 From the theory of public sphere to the theory of communicative action ........... 20 2.5 Critical reflections on Habermas.......................................................................... 24 2.5.1 Key features of modernity ....................................................................... 26 2.5.2 A side-note on the Madisonian concept of democracy ............................ 27 2.6 Habermas and the public sphere - a short summary ............................................ 28 2.7 Culture industry - theory and critique .................................................................. 29 3 CONCEPTUALIZING THE INTERNET ................................................................... 37 3.1 The internet as media institution - the internet as business.................................. 39 3.1.1 Common and advocacy domains of the media........................................ 41 3.1.2 Questions of censorship and regulation................................................... 42 3.2 The dimension of media representation ............................................................... 42 3.3 Social structures on the internet - “globality and goodness of fit” ...................... 44 3.4 The internet as sociocultural interaction .............................................................. 50 3.4.1 The discursive aspect............................................................................... 51 3.4.2 The spatial aspect..................................................................................... 52 3.4.3 The communal aspect .............................................................................. 54 3.5 Summary of questions.......................................................................................... 56 4. ECONOMIC BACKGROUND.................................................................................... 58 4.1 Barriers to entry ................................................................................................... 59 4.2 Worldwide internet penetration............................................................................ 60 4.3 Freedom and advertising...................................................................................... 61 5 ANALYSIS....................................................................................................................... 64 5.1 Blogs .................................................................................................................... 64 5.1.1 The concept.............................................................................................. 64 5.1.2 The content .............................................................................................. 65 5.1.3 The business model.................................................................................. 65 5.1.4 Are blogs part of the media institution?................................................... 67 5.1.5 Globality and the goodness of fit............................................................. 72 5.1.6 Questionable identities and reliability ..................................................... 74 5.1.7 The mode of consumption ....................................................................... 75 5.1.8 Community; the possibilities of discussion ............................................. 76 2 5.1.9 Blogs and the culture industry................................................................. 78 5.1.10 Summary: blogs..................................................................................... 79 5.2 Social bookmarking and news sites ..................................................................... 81 5.2.1 The concept.............................................................................................. 81 5.2.2 The content .............................................................................................. 84 5.2.3 The business model.................................................................................. 88 5.2.4 Social content sites and the media institution.......................................... 88 5.2.5 Globality and the goodness of fit............................................................. 89 5.2.6 On the identity of users and the reliability of social content sites........... 91 5.2.7 On the mode of consumption................................................................... 94 5.2.8 Social contents and the culture industry .................................................. 95 5.2.9 Summary.................................................................................................. 97 5.3 RSS and personalized starting pages ................................................................... 99 5.3.1 The concept – and the mode of consumption .......................................... 99 5.3.2 The content ............................................................................................ 100 5.3.3 The business model................................................................................ 100 5.3.4 RSS and the media institution ............................................................... 101 5.3.5 Summary................................................................................................ 102 5.4 Discussion forums.............................................................................................. 103 5.4.1 The concept............................................................................................ 103 5.4.2 The content ............................................................................................ 105 5.4.3 The business model................................................................................ 106 5.4.4 On the identity of users and the reliability of forums............................ 107 5.4.5 Are forums part of the media institution?...............................................111 5.4.6 Globality and goodness of fit................................................................. 112 5.4.7 Mode of consumption............................................................................ 113 5.4.8 Forums and the culture industry ............................................................ 115 5.4.9 Forums as communities ......................................................................... 116 5.4.10 Summary.............................................................................................. 116 6 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................119 6.1 Infrastructural limitations and business interests............................................... 119 6.2 Blogs, social news sites, forums ........................................................................ 120 6.3 Is a global public sphere possible?..................................................................... 122 6.4 Intercultural public sphere(s) ............................................................................. 124 6.5 Impact on the culture industry ........................................................................... 124 6.6 Internet, mass media and public sphere – a short summary............................... 125 7 SUGGESTED FURTHER RESEARCH .................................................................... 127 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................ 130 APPENDIX (Tables cited) ............................................................................................ 139 3 UNIVERSITY OF VAASA Faculty of Humanities Programme: ICS Author: András Szabó Master's Thesis: The Effects of the Internet on the Public Sphere and on the Culture Industry (A study of blogs, social news sites and discussion forums) Degree: Master of Arts Main Subject: Intercultural studies in communication Year of graduation: 2007 Supervisor: Tarmo Malmberg, Christoph Parry ABSTRACT: This thesis analyses how certain services of online communication (blogs, discussion forums, social news and bookmarking sites) contribute to the public sphere
Load more

Recommended publications
  • How a Thriving Public Sphere Makes Better Citizens and Better Neighbors Kylie Schreiber
    Bridge/Work Volume 3 Issue 1 Democracy in Transition? Neighbor, nation and Article 1 the politics of now 2017 Conversations that Matter: How a Thriving Public Sphere Makes Better Citizens and Better Neighbors Kylie Schreiber Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/ilasbw Part of the Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons, Other Communication Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, and the Social Influence and Political Communication Commons Recommended Citation Schreiber, Kylie (2017) "Conversations that Matter: How a Thriving Public Sphere Makes Better Citizens and Better Neighbors," Bridge/Work: Vol. 3 : Iss. 1 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/ilasbw/vol3/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Bridge/Work by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. Schreiber: Conversations that Matter Decline. Division. Polarization. These are just a few of the words that frequent news media headlines, the mouths of politicians, and scholarly research when discussing the current political, social, and economic situations facing the United States. From the outward narratives of America’s declining economy and infrastructure to the more internal divisions that were exposed during the 2016 presidential election cycle, the visions and reality of decline seem to be everywhere. This is not new. Recent events certainly highlighted more serious divisions among American citizens and worsening attitudes towards politics and democracy, but this is not an entirely new concept.
    [Show full text]
  • New Media & Society
    New Media & Society http://nms.sagepub.com The virtual sphere: the internet as a public sphere Zizi Papacharissi New Media Society 2002; 4; 9 DOI: 10.1177/14614440222226244 The online version of this article can be found at: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/1/9 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for New Media & Society can be found at: Email Alerts: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://nms.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Downloaded from http://nms.sagepub.com at Ebsco Host temp on October 16, 2007 © 2002 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ new media & society Copyright © 2002 SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol4(1):9–27 [1461–4448(200202)4:1;9–27;020808] ARTICLE The virtual sphere ............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ The internet as a public sphere ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Deliberative Democracy in the Networked Public Sphere: Using Social Media to Talk Politics
    Deliberative Democracy in the Networked Public Sphere: Using Social Media to Talk Politics Russell William Hansen A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts University of Washington 2018 Committee: Emily Ignacio Amos Nascimento Program Authorized to Offer Degree: School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Science ©Copyright 2018 Russell William Hansen University of Washington Abstract Deliberative Democracy in the Networked Public Sphere: Using Social Media to Talk Politics Russell William Hansen Chairs of the Supervisory Committee: Emily Ignacio Amos Nascimento Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Online discussions about politics are commonplace, and could play a large role in the deliberative process that is crucial to the healthy functioning of democracy. Assailed as inferior, dysfunctional, and distracting, these discussions are made possible by the invention and adoption of new information communication technologies, and questions often arise regarding how the uses of such technologies affect the way in which political deliberation is undertaken. I look at these questions through the lens of public sphere theory, focusing on how political discussion on social media platforms such as Reddit and Facebook adheres to the norms of ideal democratic deliberation. I advocate for the development of new methods which take into consideration the complexity of overlapping networks of digital communication technologies. Running Head: DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IN THE NETWORKED PUBLIC SPHERE 1 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my thesis chairs, Emily Ignacio and Amos Nascimento, for their tireless effort and constant support in helping me to write this thesis. They have been invaluable for encouraging my intellectual development, and I cannot imagine having completed this thesis without their assistance.
    [Show full text]
  • Citizenship, the Public Sphere and Media
    Bart Cammaerts Citizenship, the public sphere and media Book section Original citation: Cammaerts, Bart (2007) Citizenship, the public sphere and media. In: Cammaerts, Bart and Carpentier, Nico, (eds.) Reclaiming the media: communication rights and democratic media roles. European communication research and education association series,3 . Intellect, Bristol, UK, pp. 1-8. ISBN 9781841501635 © 2007 Intellect Books This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/39663/ Available in LSE Research Online: July 2013 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Section 01.qxd 8/24/05 5:26 PM Page 1 Section One: Introduction Citizenship, the Public Sphere, and Media Bart Cammaerts Historically, citizenship can be traced back to ancient Greek city–states. It is traditionally understood as a system whereby rights are granted to and duties put upon citizens.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mass Media, Democracy and the Public Sphere
    Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt The mass media, democracy and the public sphere Book section Original citation: Originally published in Livingstone, Sonia and Lunt, Peter, (eds.) Talk on television audience participation and public debate. London : Routledge, UK, 1994, pp. 9-35. © 1994 Sonia Livingstone and Peter Lunt This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/48964/ Available in LSE Research Online: April 2013 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. Original citation: Livingstone, S., and Lunt, P. (1994) The mass media, democracy and the public sphere. In Talk on Television: Audience participation and public debate (9-35). London: Routledge. Chapter 2 The mass media, democracy and the public sphere INTRODUCTION In this chapter we explore the role played by the mass media in political participation, in particular in the relationship between the laity and established power.
    [Show full text]
  • Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 8-2014 Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science Todd Ernest Suomela University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Communication Commons, and the Library and Information Science Commons Recommended Citation Suomela, Todd Ernest, "Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2864 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Todd Ernest Suomela entitled "Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Communication and Information. Suzie Allard, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Carol Tenopir, Mark Littmann, Harry Dahms Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Citizen Science: Framing the Public, Information Exchange, and Communication in Crowdsourced Science ADissertationPresentedforthe Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Todd Ernest Suomela August 2014 c by Todd Ernest Suomela, 2014 All Rights Reserved.
    [Show full text]
  • Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Tracing the Development of Nineteenth-Century Latin American Identities Lisa Ponce University of Massachusetts Amherst
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 2013 Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Tracing the Development of Nineteenth-Century Latin American Identities Lisa Ponce University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Part of the Latin American History Commons Ponce, Lisa, "Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Tracing the Development of Nineteenth-Century Latin American Identities" (2013). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 993. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/993 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Tracing the Development of Early National Identities in Argentina and Mexico A Thesis Presented by Lisa Katherine Ponce Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS February 2013 Department of History Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Tracing the Development of Nineteenth-Century Latin American Identities A Thesis Presented By Lisa Katherine Ponce Approved as to style and content by: _______________________________ José Angel Hernández, Chair ___________________________________ Heidi Scott, Member ___________________________________ Marla Miller, Member _________________________________ Marla Miller, Graduate Program Director Department of History ABSTRACT NATIONALISM AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE: TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY LATIN AMERICAN IDENTITIES FEBRUARY 2013 LISA PONCE, B.F.A., CATAWBA COLLEGE M.A. UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Civil Society/Public Sphere: History of the Concept
    Ciil Society\Public Sphere: History of the Concept Neocleous M 1996 Administering Ciil Society: Towards a The Greek conception of the polis, for example, Theory of State Power. MacMillan, London usually referred to both, but when a distinction was Offe C 1987 Challenging the boundaries of institutional politics: made, it clearly favored the state. Social movements since the 1960s. In: Maier C (ed.) Changing Roman law contributed the idea of ciitas and a Boundaries of the Political: Essays on the Eoling Balance Between State and Society, Public and Priate in Europe. stronger sense of relations among persons that were Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK neither narrowly familial nor specifically about consti- Pasquino P 1981 Introduction to Lorenz von Stein. Economy and tuting the political society through the state. Medieval Society 10(1): 1–6 political and legal theory developed this theme, es- Reidel M 1984 Between Tradition and Eolution: The Hegelian pecially in relation to the freedoms claimed by medi- Transformation of Political Philosophy. Cambridge University eval cities but also in relation to the Church. Some Press, Cambridge, UK strands juxtaposed the notion of legitimacy ascending Richter M 1998 Montesquieu and the concept of civil society. from ‘the people’ to the eventually dominant idea of The European Legacy 3(66): 33–41 divine right of kings, with its notion of legitimacy Rosanvallon P 1988 The decline of social visibility. In: Keane J (ed.) Ciil Society and the State: New European Perspecties. descending from God. Also influential was the dis- Verso, London tinction of civil from criminal law (in which the former Smith A 1974 The Wealth of Nations.
    [Show full text]
  • Does Habermas Understand the Internet? the Algorithmic Construction of the Blogo/Public Sphere
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Previously Published Works Title Does Habermas Understand the Internet? The Algorithmic Construction of the Blogo/Public Sphere Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/60s6s0p8 Journal Gnovis: A Journal of Communication, Culture, and Technology, 10(1) Author Geiger, R. Stuart Publication Date 2009 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Geiger 1 gnovis: a journal of communication, culture, and technology | issue 10, volume 1 Does Habermas Understand the Internet? The Algorithmic Construction of the Blogo/Public Sphere R. Stuart Geiger Georgetown University, Communication, Culture, and Technology Program Abstract: Is computer-mediated discourse leading to collective political action in the public sphere, or simply more fragmentation? This question has been asked by social and political theorists ever since the Internet entered academia in the early 90s. However, this debate has been recently rekindled by Jurgen Habermas – one of the leading theorists of the public sphere – who recently broke a longstanding silence and spoke out against the Internet as a potentially democratizing medium. Instead of directly intervening in this debate, I interrogate the techno- epistemic conditions of possibility for ‗the blogosphere‘ to exist as a sociopolitical entity. Specifically, I analyze social aggregation sites like Technorati, Delicious, Digg, and even Google, which make it possible for collective action to precipitate out of the Internet. I find that Habermasians should not fear fragmentation, but instead integration: the blogosphere as a public sphere is constructed and unified not by ideal discourse, but algorithms. Keywords: public sphere, blogosphere, networked public sphere, discourse, critical theory, social media, social aggregation, technoepistemics, oligopticons, Jurgen Habermas, Yochai Benkler gnovis 10.1 – Fall 2009 Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2734947 Geiger 2 From its unusual beginning as a data-sharing network designed by the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mediated Public Sphere: a Model for Cross-National Research1
    The Mediated Public Sphere: A Model for Cross-National Research1 Rodney Benson The American University of Paris and Centre de sociologie européenne Center for Culture, Organizations and Politics University of California, Berkeley Working Paper 2001 Series http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~iir/culture/papers.html Copyright Rodney Benson. All Rights Reserved. Please do not cite without permission. 1I would like to thank Neil Fligstein, Loïc Wacquant, Michael Schudson, Eric Klinenberg, Daniel Dohan, Sandra Moog, Daniel C. Hallin and Kelly E. Benson for their helpful comments on various versions of this article. Direct correspondence to Rodney Benson at [email protected]. The Mediated Public Sphere: A Model for Cross-National Research ABSTRACT This study tests Habermas’s contention that greater commercialization undermines the media’s capacity to serve as a public sphere, that is, to promote rational-critical public debate involving the widest possible citizen participation. Hypotheses about commercial and state effects on news production are tested via comparison of the commercially dominated American media and the state dominated French media. In news coverage of comparable protest events, the French media are more participatory, less rational in certain aspects and equally critical. The mezzo-organizational environment of the “journalistic field” is shown to mediate external pressures, accounting more fully for cross-national differences and similarities. 2 The Mediated Public Sphere: A Model for Cross-National Research The mass media are widely viewed as the central institution of the contemporary public sphere (Garnham 1993, 1995; Castells 1997; Calhoun 1988; Verstraeten 1996; Curran 1991; Hallin 1994). In recent years, concern has mounted that intensified commercialization of the American media system has undermined its capacity to act as public sphere (e.g., McManus 1994; Fallows 1996; Rosenstiel et al.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Concept of Public Sphere in Social Management
    Aprofundamento das esferas públicas para a gestão social: caminhos para uma reconstrução empírico-descritiva e normativa André Spuri Garcia¹ José Roberto Pereira¹ Valderí de Castro Alcântara¹ Elaine Santos Teixeira Cruz¹ 1Universidade Federal de Lavras, Lavras – MG, Brasil Resumo Neste artigo, buscamos reconstruir as esferas públicas como uma categoria empírico-descritiva e normativa das pesquisas em gestão social. Nesse processo, revelamos que o conceito de esfera pública passou por críticas e reformulações nas obras de Habermas (1962; 1981; 1992) e que as concepções mais atuais abrangem uma pluralidade de públicos, interesses e opiniões, bem como dimensões conflitivas e potenciais opressivos. No que tange à escolha metodológica, este artigo é um ensaio teórico. Para a construção deste ensaio, foi realizada uma ampla pesquisa bibliográfica focada principalmente na literatura sobre “gestão social” e “esfera pública”. Identificamos várias lacunas e limitações nos entendimentos sobre esfera pública pelos estudos do campo da gestão social e, considerando as limitações como processos de aprendizagem, buscamos avançar a partir de novos elementos. Argumentamos que, se considerarmos as esferas públicas como locus de pesquisas da gestão social (normativo e empírico-descritivo), é importante destacar que: (1) as esferas públicas são locus de consensos e conflitos; (2) podem tanto se constituírem concretamente de elementos democráticos e emancipatórios quanto opressivos; (3) são formadas por uma diversidade de públicos (e contrapúblicos) com diferentes “capacidades” de acesso e argumentação; (4) no Brasil, houve a formação de esferas públicas subalternas; (5) as características das formações de esferas públicas não podem ser importadas e (6) a efetividade das esferas públicas é influenciada por estruturas sistêmicas.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effects of Transformation of Public Sphere with the New Media in Academy
    OPEN ACCESS EURASIA Journal of Mathematics Science and Technology Education ISSN: 1305-8223 (online) 1305-8215 (print) 2017 13(8):5009-5018 DOI: 10.12973/eurasia.2017.00979a The Effects of Transformation of Public Sphere with the New Media in Academy Ömer Yetkinel Cyprus International University, N. CYPRUS Metin Çolak Cyprus International University, N. CYPRUS Received 7 February 2017 ▪ Revised 14 July 2017 ▪ Accepted 2 August 2017 ABSTRACT When technology has successfully penetrated in all aspects of life, a discussion on public sphere and its relevance in today’s scenario is becoming more complicated. It is needless to say that opinions will differ as the post-modern critics dissect Habermas’ concept of public sphere with full acuity. As the mass media is being dominated by the Information and Communications Technology industry, the perceptible change and the aspect of critical publicity that Habermas emphasized on with a higher sense of responsibility is worth discussing. Computer-mediated communication and its uses in education is dominating today’s age and the issue like commercialization, commodification, media ownership, instructional technologies are sometimes considered to be challenging the power of free, rational thinking and freedom of speech. This age of digitalization is definitely getting dependent to cyberspace more for every reason or the other, but what needs to be assessed is if this dependency is effecting the freedom of democratic discussion. Keywords: critical thinking, democracy education, public sphere, new media tools, technology education INTRODUCTION When it comes to discussion about public sphere, Habermas’ analytical probing of the public sphere in civil society, which was published in 1962, cannot be missed.
    [Show full text]