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8The Public Sphere and Online Social Media The Public Sphere and Online Social Media: 8Exploring the Use of Online Social Media as Discursive Spaces in an Irish Context Claire English1 Abstract nline social media have become integral to individuals’ media and Ocommunication repertoires globally. They provide spaces to meet with friends, reconnect with old acquaintances and gather around shared topics of interest. This chapter presents findings from a qualitative study into the role of online social media in the lives of 25 to 30 year olds in Ireland. The wider research project asks how these sites are enmeshed into everyday life. This chapter focuses on the use of these online social media sites for discursive practices associated with Habermas’s (1989) conception of the public sphere, as a space of rational debate among private individuals. Here I report on empirical research carried out between 2008 and 2012 drawing on insights gained from semi structured interviews and online observation carried out with eleven participants. The study aims to gain an insight into their use of online social media focusing here on their attitudes towards posting, online discussion and conceptions of online social media as a discursive space. Keywords: online social media, citizenship, public sphere, media and everyday life, audience studies, internet research. 1. Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland; [email protected] This chapter draws on research undertaken as part of the Irish Social Science Platform (ISSP). Please note that the latter was funded by the Higher Education Authority’s PRTLI Cycle 4, the European Regional Development Fund, Irelands’ EU Structural Funds Programme and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. How to cite this chapter: English, C. (2013). The Public Sphere and Online Social Media: Exploring the Use of Online Social Media as Discursive Spaces in an Irish Context. In C. Fowley, C. English, & S. Thouësny (Eds.), Internet Research, Theory, and Practice: Perspectives from Ireland (pp. 135-155). Dublin: © Research-publishing.net. 135 Chapter 8 1. Introduction Web 2.0 and social media in particular have come into sharp focus within debates surrounding public engagement and citizenship as possible elixirs to a perceived democratic deficit in contemporary society. However, it is all too easy to valorise technology, viewing it as a ‘magic bullet’ which will alter greatly the way in which citizens engage with public life. If we examine only the technical features or the content of such media and eliminate the user from the equation an incomplete picture may be formed. Following research which emphasises the need to examine the role of the internet in civic participation (Dahlgren, 2000; Dahlgren & Gurevitch, 2005; Hirzalla & Van Zoonen, 2010; Wellman & Haythornwaite, 2002) this study investigates how online social media is utilised by citizens in everyday life to engage with civic life in an Irish context. This chapter focuses on one aspect of a wider research project, namely participants’ use of online social media in discussion of formal political events. The context for this particular study is Ireland. The past ten years have seen major changes for the generation of Irish citizens now in their late twenties. The highs of the Irish ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy have given way to a phase of economic meltdown where the confidence and expectations of prosperity and stability have been replaced by mass unemployment and a resurgence of emigration1. Members of this age group are often cited as being disengaged from politics and public issues; this research asks whether online social media sites play a role in this group’s participation in discursive civic practices? Running parallel to this, the dissemination of vast amounts of information of various genres and questionable quality is often viewed as a distraction to citizens, corrosive to the public sphere. The structure of the home as a private space can be seen as increasingly permeable through the use of media technologies. Just 1. Unemployment figures published by the CSO put the unemployment rate in Ireland at 14.4% for October 2011 (Quarterly National Household Survey: Quarter 3). This is an increase of 9.6% since January 2008 when this research began when the rate was calculated at 4.8%. This reporting period was deemed of most relevance to this research as it corresponded to the period of empirical research. In terms of emigration the CSO released figures in September 2011 which show increases in the level of emigration from Ireland, especially among Irish nationals (Population and Migration Estimates April 2011). In the year from April 2010 to April 2011 76,400 people emigrated from Ireland in total with 40,200 of these being Irish nationals, a rise from 27,700 in the previous year. In terms of age 25 to 44 year olds were the largest cohort to emigrate with 34,400 leaving the country in this period. 136 Claire English as the public sphere has infiltrated this once perceived private space of the home, its inhabitants have gained power to influence events within the public sphere through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). In terms of more recent ICT development, new forms of social reality are emerging: where national, regional and cultural boundaries are breaking down, technology is the only remaining boundary, and it allows for forms of social reality whereby shared experience is permitted across thousands of kilometres (Morley, 2007). Online social media in their different incarnations allow for a variety of interactions among users. From ‘one to one’ interactions in an instant messaging session, email and private messages on social networking sites; ‘one to many’ interactions through blogs, social media posts and comments on various media websites through to ‘many to many’ interactions on forums, group and community web pages. These sites create spaces where people can connect with each other, gather together and where discussion can occur (Baym, 2000). Boyd and Ellison (2007) identify the power in these interactions for users as the ability to collapse time and space, reflecting McLuhan’s (1964) ideas on the impact of technology on society. In what can be held as a technological determinist stance these interactions are seen to alter practices of communication, collaboration, information dissemination and social organisation (Benkler, 2006; Castells, 1996; Rheingold, 2000). Negroponte (1995) thus described how internet technology would create a new “global social fabric” which would replace any technology which went before it (p. 183). Within this research the conception of the public sphere emerges from Habermasian theory as a space where a collective of private individuals can gather to share information and ideas and engage in debate surrounding matters of public concern. Habermas (1989) saw the bourgeois society of the late 17th and 18th centuries as providing a model for the ideal public sphere where issues relating to the state and public policies could be discussed in accordance with Kantian ideals of procedural rationality1. Utopian perspectives view the internet as having a potential for the enhanced provision of such a space, where people can construct their identity independently of their demographic 1. Procedural rationality posits that where discussions take place the emphasis is on the strength of an argument as opposed to a person’s social status and background. 137 Chapter 8 profile, providing a potential for debate irrespective of the social situations of the individuals involved (Benkler, 2006; Negroponte, 1995; Turkle, 1996). Habermas (1989) tends to idealise the public sphere of the 17th and 18th centuries in his work, defining the public sphere as “the public of private individuals who join in debate of issues bearing on state authority” (cited in Calhoun, 1992, p. 7, emphasis in original). The origins of this idea can be seen to stretch back as far as Classical Greece1. The Grecian model of a public sphere coupled with Immanuel Kant’s idea of ‘procedural rationality’ can be seen as the foundations of Habermas’s (1989) formulation of the public sphere. This ancient model of the public sphere resurfaced during the Renaissance period and Habermas (1989) sees this template for society as surviving in some form through the Enlightenment to the emergence of contemporary democratic society. Critiques of Habermas’s (1989) concept of the public sphere have come from a variety of standpoints, and point out the exclusions evident in the structure of Habermas’s (1989) romanticised vision of the 18th Century public sphere where access was limited to upper class, property owning, white males. Fraser (1985, 1992) has argued for a broadening of access and an expansion of the scope for valid topics of discussion, to include the politics of everyday life as well as formal politics at the level of the State. She argues that the public sphere is not a singular entity but is constituted of a multitude of public-spheres or ‘counterpublics’ made up of those members of society excluded from Habermas’s (1989) conceptualisation of the public sphere. Democracy and citizenship require the provision of a space where citizens can gather and discuss public issues, a fact which continues to be drawn on in much of the literature concerning the potential for the internet to play a role in the strengthening of citizenship and democracy (Dahlgren, 2009; Hirzalla & Van Zoonen, 2010; Livingstone, Couldry, & Markham, 2007; Rheingold, 2000). In contemporary society there may be the potential to establish this type of public sphere through the internet. Thus, Habermas’s (1989) concept 1. In the Greek instance society was demarcated along lines of the state (polis) and the private realms of free citizens (idia) and also public life (bios politicos) and home life (Habermas, 1989, p. 3). The public sphere in the Greek sense was formed on the basis of discussion where heads of households could engage in discussions of all aspects of public life.
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