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Habermas and the Public Sphere

Do the Internet and the World Wide Web have the potential to be a more idealised version of Habermas' Public Sphere?

 

Jurgen Habermas was born in 1929 and studied under Adorno and Horkheimer at the Frankfurt School. In 1962 he wrote his first book about the public sphere, "Structural Transformation in the Public Sphere" which tells of his thoughts on how democracy is achieved through opinions formed from public discussion. Habermas believes that democracy developed in the 18^th century through men meeting together, for example in coffee houses, to read books and journals and discuss and form opinions on what they had read. According to Habermas, "Citizens act as a public when they deal with matters of general interest without being subject to coercion; thus with the guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and publicize their opinions freely."(1996) For the public sphere to be successful the men must have had somewhere to meet, previous knowledge on the topic, have been willing to revise their opinions based on the discussion and have been able to talk as equals. Habermas himself has taken criticism of his theory and adjusted and revised parts of it.

During the 20^th century most of our knowledge of politics and current events has come from the media, such as television and newspapers. Politicians have learnt to control the media to ensure that stories they want released receive lots of media coverage and stories they want to be kept quiet are hidden. Newspapers are bias to political parties and don't normally provide balanced information and allow readers to form their own opinions. People also spend little time discussing politics or current events meaning that the public sphere Habermas described as existing in the 18^th century does not exist in the same way today.

However, many people believe that the Internet is either now a public sphere or has the potential to develop into one in the future. There are many reasons why this could be possible.

The Internet is more than sites on the World Wide Web. It allows many forms of communication through networked computers, such as e-mail, newsgroups, IRC, MUDs and chat rooms, through which users can express their opinions and discuss them with others. The public spheres of the 18^th century contained local people, discussing local events. However, the Internet allows people from all over the world to come together and discuss politics or events occurring anywhere in the world. At the moment under 10% of the world's population has access to the Internet, which means that it would be hard to call the Internet today a public sphere. However, the technology is available for it to be possible and one day everyone in the world will be able to access the Internet if they want to. This would be a more idealised version of the public sphere as people from different cultures will have different experiences and views which will enrich the discussion and allow more educated opinions to be formed.

One condition Habermas set for a public sphere was that the members should all be equal in the discussion. The Internet would be the perfect place for this as no one can judge anybody else by the colour of their skin, clothes they wear or job they do. On the Internet people can be whoever they want to be and are judged only by what they say. However, if the members of the group are pretending to be somebody else they cannot be having a proper discussion about their views and beliefs. There is no way of ensuring that people are who they say they are online and if there was it would prevent people being seen as equal.

To have a proper discussion all members must have some prior knowledge of the subject and the World Wide Web allows anyone to find information on virtually any topic. This information can be accessed from the house of anyone with a computer connected to the Internet and is therefore much easier to find than buying a book or visiting the library. This would contribute to a more idealised version of the public sphere due to the amount and ease of accessibility of information. However, as anyone can publish anything on the web it is very difficult to know what information is reliable. If members of a discussion were misinformed it could stop the discussion from acting as a public sphere. If in the future a method of verifying websites was designed to ensure the information obtained was correct this could help to make the Internet a public sphere.

The Internet today is largely text based, partly due to the fact that most computers still have a slow connection to the Internet. This makes it different from the public sphere of the 18^th century, where discussions were carried out by speech, in person. Although people who use computers regularly learn to type quickly it is still not as instant as speech. Chat rooms and IRC do allow for real time discussion, but e-mail and posts on web forums can be re-read and edited before being sent or published.

When we speak we say things as we think them and cannot change what we have already said. This may mean that discussions that would have taken place in person would not take place over the Internet, which reduces the effectiveness of the public sphere. Another problem is that as people cannot see each other they may misunderstand what is being said and the discussion may become confused. However, the number of people with access to a broadband Internet connection is growing, which brings many possibilities for Internet communications. Webcams and microphones already mean that it is possible for people to send sound and video over the Internet, in the future with faster Internet connections it may be possible to have a video conference with multiple people in a chat room style environment. This would make online discussions more like actual real life discussions.

Anyone who is online can have access to IRC and chat rooms for free. Publishing a website can cost anything up to around £15 a year for a domain name, but some companies do provide some space for websites for free. Access to the Internet can be expensive, depending on what ISP and connection speed you use. Anytime unlimited Internet access from Freeserve costs £14.99 a month, which although not expensive is more than some people in Britain could afford, and totally out of reach for people living in third world countries. In Britain anybody can have free Internet access in a library, however this time is restricted and can be very busy. Until the Internet is available to everyone, regardless of how much money they have it will not be able to function as a public sphere.

As the Internet is a relatively new technology many people do not know its full potential or how to use it properly. Older people and others who are unsure of new technology do not use it as often as they could and would therefore not use it as a public sphere. This problem will gradually decrease over time as the Internet and computers become less of a new technology and even more common place but for it to become a public sphere everyone needs to be able to use the Internet correctly.

The Internet is still relatively new; the World Wide Web was started in 1992 and so is only 11 years old. This means that it can be difficult to predict how it is going to change and develop in the future. Currently it is very difficult to censor the WWW, which is why there are so many websites publishing minority views. Communication through e-mail and chat rooms is even harder to censor. This may all change in the future, which would change how people published and discussed their views. If a government appointed body monitored IRC and chat rooms, people would not feel as though they could take part in a free discussion, which would prevent it from becoming a public sphere. When radio broadcasting first began it was mainly used by 'pirate' radio stations, unlicensed people broadcasting whatever they wanted. These radio enthusiasts thought that radio would improve education and allow people to be more informed about politics by politicians broadcasting their opinions over the radio. They also believed that politicians would be held more accountable to their actions as more people would know what was happening. These claims were also made about television when it first began, and now of the Internet. Once the government took control of radio broadcasting and the BBC was created most 'pirate' broadcasters were forced to stop broadcasting. If the government finds a way to control and censor the Internet the same thing could happen.

Another possibility is that the Internet could become controlled by one or two large companies. News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's company owns television production and distribution companies, newspapers and a book publishing company. This means that he can promote one company with another, for example, an article in a newspaper praising a television company. The problem with this is that not everyone will realise the bias and none of the companies can be totally impartial. If this happens to the Internet then freedom of speech online will not always be totally possible. According to Rheingold, "The way the number of owners of telecommunication channels is narrowing to a tiny elite, while the reach and power of the media they own expand, is a converging threat to citizens." (1999) The Internet and other media can be very influential, it will not help democracy and people making their own decisions if one or two people own and publish the majority of content.

In 2000 the media entertainment company, Time Warner merged with the largest Internet provider AOL. This was intended to allow Time Warner an outlet on the Internet and would provide AOL with extra content. They planned to show films and television programmes on a pay per view basis online, but this has not yet been possible, due to the delay in AOL implementing the faster broadband connections needed. Two years on and this company is loosing money and $26 billion in debt and important figures in the company, such as Vice Chairman Ted Turner have quit. Even though this merger has not had a big effect on the content of the Internet there is no reason why future mergers will not.

The Internet does have the potential to become an idealised version of the public sphere, but it depends which way the Internet develops. It also has the potential to become a place where content is restricted to what is in the best interests for whichever company owns the site, where only a few people can use it properly and where no one knows what information is accurate.

Bibliography

 

 

1. Marris, P & Thornham S (ed), 1996, Media Studies A Reader, Edinburgh University Press: Great Britain, p55
   

 

1. Mackay, H & O'Sullllivan, T (ed), 1999, The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation, Sage Publications:London, p284
   

 

1. Baert, P, 1998, Social Theory in the Twentieth Century, Polity Press:Great Britian
   

 

1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fmoney%2F2003%2F03%2F06%2Fcnted06.xml 29/04/03
   

 

1. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=11644&printerfriendly=1 29/04/03
   

 

1. http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/chunter/public_sphere.html 29/04/03
   

 

1. http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/index.html 29/04/03
   

 

 

Links for case study

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-12237100

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1129157-have-asked-ss-to-take-dd-into-care

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Lesson 20/1

Case study about how the Internet has affected one news story

Completing the questions for your surveys.

Homework

To collect your data and collate it. Bring to next lesson.

Feedback on long tail theory homework.

This homework was far too brief. It should have been a well research and referenced piece of work, taking you about an hour to complete. The idea behind your blogs is to create a resource that will help you with your revision and the posts so far will not do that. In future you must put the time and effort into your homeworks, or you will have to stay behind at lunch at after school so that I can supervise you doing so.

People who still have not linked to their blogs need to do so, another late homework will result in a detention.

Lesson 13th Jan - The long tail theory.

Read the long tail theory worksheet in the student resources section of our room on fronter.
Also explore this website http://www.longtail.com/about.html

How does the long tail theory relate to the news?

Homework

Explain what the long tail theory is and how it relates to the news and post it to your blog. You may present this information in whatever form you wish, the more creative the better! Examples, just written in your blog, filmed, podcast, mind map etc. This should be posted by monday please. Anyone who is late this week will be in detention.

Web archive

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