10 thoughts on “Post cases of where the Internet is a Habermasian ‘public sphere’ and where it is not”

  2. Example of a public sphere:
    http://www.nextamerica.org/debates
    This is a public sphere because it is actively promoting debate and discussion on specific topics. It’s very organized, and people can simply vote if they do not have a specific argument on the topic. You can also reply to people’s arguments.

    Example of something that’s not a public sphere:
    http://www.causes.com/causes/238988/impact?m=
    This is not a public sphere because it has no impact on the cause it is trying to promote. It’s not something that needs discussion and is no longer actively gaining support. If you look at the impact tab of the page, it is almost completely blank. It’s not a public sphere because it’s an “awareness” group, but still considered under the “causes” application.

  4. http://www.peopleschoice.com/pca/ – Voting is not currently open, but when it is then anyone is able to go to the website and vote for their favorite star, movie, etc. These votes are actually used to determine the winner for each award, and voters can see the effect of their participation on TV. The site is easily accessible and simple to navigate.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GALYnnAQFKA – People that watch this video are somewhat interested in politics because they are keeping themselves up to date with current issues. Reading through the comments shows that many users are passionate about this issue and have their own ideas about how it should be handled. However, leaving a comment on YouTube will not lead to any actual political action being taken, and it is unlikely that all commentators will be able to fully agree with one point.

  5. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/steve-richards/steve-richards-why-did-brown-make-this-blunder-1957036.html

    This news story’s comment section is an example of a public forum in a sense. It is easily accessible to everyone, and it is an example of discussion that is mostly free of flaming. However, it is not a true public sphere because the discussion in the comments section does not continue beyond the discussion of the article.

    http://2chan.com

    It is not an example of public sphere because it is not really designed to encourage discussion simply because it is in japanese.

  9. http://www.liberalforum.org/
    —Titled “Political Forum and Chatroom” but the URL indicates its liberal bent.

    We were unable to find a site that is arguably a public sphere in this class time. However, thinking about how previously people were rather limited by geographic location to people they would be discussing issues with, they would have to reach a consensus about issues because it would be decisions that would affect them all (although often this is debatable if consensus decisions occur or if it’s just majority rules), so we were thinking that if there WAS a public sphere site, perhaps it would be geographically oriented. As you go online, geographic barriers to communication may be lowered, but new interest barriers grow because cyberspace is so large that people can just gather with like-minded people and agree with each other about how bad the other side is. If the issues discussed online were about affecting a group’s offline life, perhaps it would act more like a public sphere.

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