scholarly journals A Critical Analysis of the Public Sphere in the Digital Age: The Case of the Petrocaribe Challenge Movement

Etkileşim ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 90-107
Author(s):  
Marc-Henry Pierre ◽  
Mehmet Güzel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Public Sphere

While studies that address the relationship between social media and social movements generally use the functionalist paradigm, the critical analysis of the public sphere in the era of distributed media emphasizes the importance of political economy and political communication. Based on the critical political economy analysis of distributed media, this study examined the Twitter-mediated protest "Petrocaribe Challenge" in relation to a possible political public sphere in Haiti. To this end, a qualitative method based on critical discourse analysis was used in the study. Also, 163 tweets purposely selected by the researchers were analyzed. The research findings showed that the Twitter-mediated Petrocaribe Challenge is a political protest with no leadership and a significant lack of online engagement and communication. Besides, the study found that in a political sphere characterized by extreme social inequalities, universal participation is crucial to the formation of a critical public sphere. Although most educated people in Haiti use social media, the majority of Haitians do not have access to these online platforms, which goes against the principles of the public sphere. While the findings of the present study do not allow for generalization, they make up a significant contribution to the critical analysis of social media as a public sphere

scholarly journals Social Media and the Public Sphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Inaugural Lecture ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The University

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media.Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1st, 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19th, 2014, at the University of Westminster.The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at:https://vimeo.com/97173645

scholarly journals Social Media and the Public Sphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Fuchs
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
Inaugural Lecture ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The University

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media.Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1st, 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19th, 2014, at the University of Westminster.The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at:https://vimeo.com/97173645

scholarly journals #BLACKLIVESMATTER and struggle over national discourse on Twitter: digital activism as new public sphere

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-103
Author(s):  
Valeria Bondarenko ◽  
Olena Kaptiurova ◽  
Vira Orlova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Digital Activism ◽  
National Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

The tragic death of George Floyd, an African-American male killed by a white policeman, has been widely discussed on social media and instigated many to use social media as an argumentum over the law enforcement role and the racist status quo in the USA. As social media have unignorably become a tool for activists who seek to introduce new voices into the present-day monoglossic public opinion, Twitter has offered the space for the Black Lives Matter digital activism to create their own identity that enables them to participate in (re)shaping the public opinion and aspire for social change. Social media, leaning on the technological thrust into modern society, have created a viable substitute for public sphere to challenge the power and hegemony which control the production of discourse and agenda that dominate the public opinion. The study draws on Habermas' theory of the 'public sphere' so as to conceptualize the #BalckLivesMatter (BLM) activism aimed at controlling the public national discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis, in its turn, provides the framework for critical examination of language choices and the ways in which texts are structured, selected, and invested with meanings that facilitate the promotion of certain ideologies and particular social representations. Using this theoretical background, the article explores language means used in Twitter messages (http://twitter.com) by BLM activists between May 25 and 31, 2020, in the aftermath of Floyd's death. The article reveals that #BlackLivesMatter tweets expose the discourse of inequality, injustice and racism across the American nation and that Twitter is used by the black minority marginalized in the American society as an alternative space to (re)construct the public sphere and to challenge the mainstream mass media dominated by the white ideology. The linguistic analysis uncovers the divisive nature of #BlackLivesMatter messages on Twitter expressed by the emphatic blacks vs whites opposition as well as their particularism that becomes pronounced in the debates of BLM activists with the universalist #AllLivesMatter supporters.

Individuierung, Autonomie und Social Media. Überlegungen zum Strukturwandel von Öffentlichkeit und Privatheit

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-199
Author(s):  
David Waldecker ◽  
Oliver Schmidtke ◽  
Kathrin Englert
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Text Images

Abstract The internet has led to a rearrangement of the public and private spheres. Social media in particular have contributed to the blurring of boundaries between public and private as they allow for unrestricted self-representation via text, images, and video to a more or less unlimited online audience. More than ever, individuals are thus forced to take into account questions of un/desired observability. For a critical analysis of this development, this article draws upon Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Beate Rössler’s The Value of Privacy. Both authors argue that the modulation of publicness and privacy is intertwined with the process of individuation and hence concerns the autonomy of the individual, as self-realization depends upon responses from others, but also upon the ability to withdraw from public scrutiny. Drawing upon their findings, the article discusses if and how social media enhance or delimit self-realization and therefore serve or hinder individuation and autonomy.

The NGOization of Space: Dilemmas of Social Change, Planning Policy, and the Israeli Public Sphere

10.1068/d459t ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 745-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haim Yacobi
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Production Of Space ◽  
The Public ◽  
Planning Policy ◽  
Strategic Goals ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper offers a critical analysis of the role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that deal with planning policy in general and in Israel in particular. The inherent dilemmas of the different NGOs' tactics and strategies in reshaping the public sphere are examined, based on a critical reading of Habermas's conceptualization of the public sphere. The main objective of this paper is to investigate to what extent, and under which conditions, the NGOization of space—that is, the growing number of nongovernmental actors that deal with the production of space both politically and tangibly—has been able to achieve strategic goals which may lead towards social change.

scholarly journals HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFORDS POPULIST POLITICS: REMARKS ON LIMINALITY BASED ON THE BRAZILIAN CASE

2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 404-427
Author(s):  
Leticia Cesarino
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
And Linguistics

ABSTRACT In the past decade or so, populism and social media have been outstanding issues both in academia and the public sphere. At this point, evidence from multiple countries suggest that perceived parallels between the dynamics of social media and the mechanics of populist discourse may be more than just incidental, relating to a shared structural field. This article suggests one possible path towards making sense of how the dynamics of social media and the mechanics of populist mobilization have co-produced each other in the last decade or so. Navigating the interface between anthropology and linguistics, it takes key aspects of Victor Turner’s notion of liminality to suggest some of the ways in which social media’s anti-structural affordances may help lay a foundation for the contemporary flourishing of populist discourse: markers of social structure are suspended; communitas is formed; the culture core is addressed; mimesis and anti-structural inversions are performed; subjects become influenceable. I elaborate on this claim based on Brazilian materials, drawn from online ethnography on pro-Bolsonaro WhatsApp groups and other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook since 2018.

Père Trump

October ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Hal Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Higher Power ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Public Sphere

In the face of Trumpism and its peculiar mix of the buffoonish and the lethal, Foster suggests that we “pump up” past theoretical concepts by raising them to a higher degree. Social media, for example, could thereby be considered the “fifth estate,” a force that outdoes the “fourth estate” of journalistic media and thereby evacuates the last residues of the public sphere that, over fifty years ago, Jürgen Habermas associated with the advent of print culture. Peter Sloterdijk's notion of cynical reason, too, must be raised to a higher power in order to comprehend the Trumpist mentality; perhaps in this post-truth era, we should speak instead of “noncynical unreason”? And while the concept of the “primal father” is so outrageous that it cannot be inflated, Foster argues, it is one that we must grapple with in the face of a figure who, like Freud's figure, embodies the law and simultaneously performs its transgression.

Employing of Media during Terrorism

2014 ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Muhammad Ayish
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Terrorist Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Institutions ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Media ◽  
Practical Experiences ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Vital Resource

Communication has proven to be an integral component of the terrorism phenomenon. To unravel the opportunities and challenges embedded in employing the media during terrorism, this chapter draws on research findings and practical experiences around the world to identify prime actors associated with this issue and to describe their objectives, tactics, and channels of communication. It is argued here that media constitute a vital resource in the war on terror with both terrorist organizations and states harnessing communication to advance their causes in the public sphere. In this context, four categories of media users have been identified: media institutions, terrorist organizations, governments, and citizen groups. The chapter discusses enduring issues associated with each actor's use of media and calls for evolving new conceptual frameworks for understanding media use during terrorism. It concludes by arguing that while we seem to have a huge pool of research findings and practical experiences related to using the media during terrorism, we seem to have a critical shortage in how we conceptually account for the different variables that define the use of media in terrorism situations.

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