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