Internet and Public sphere

The Internet is a massive network of networks, a networking infrastructure. It builds the link between and among the networks of world wide. It connects millions of computers together globally, forming a network in which any computer can communicate with any other computer as long as they are both connected to the Internet. The World Wide Web, or simply Web, is a way of accessing information over the medium of the Internet. It helps people to interact with each other and make the people globally interactive. It helps people to get the information, educate themselves and also to update the people along with time. It is an information-sharing model that is built on top of the Internet.

The public sphere is a place where people gather, discuss fully and freely on various issues related to the society. It is a place of formation of public opinion where the people can discuss freely without any condition and restriction. The public opinion created in the public sphere acts like pressure or guide or direction for government. It is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identity societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. The public sphere is the central arena for societal communication. So, generally public sphere is conceived as the social apace in which different opinions are expressed problems of general opinions are concern are discussed and collective solutions are developed communicatively.

The theory of public sphere is introduced by Jurgen Habermas in 1962 in Germany. It is based on the link between the practices and institutions of mass communication, and the practices of democratic politics. This draws attention to the fact that public communication can be considered important to the political process. In 1989 he translated the book in English, after that only it came to popular. The name of the book was 'The Structural Transformation of Public Sphere'. Habermas arrives at the view that what he calls a public sphere began to emerge within the bourgeois classes of Western Europe in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At that time there were only two types of sphere, these are state and private.

In ancient time

 

                                               

In ancient time in Greece there were Athenian Agora (Athens square (chowk)). These squares were regarded as public spaces which were used for the discussion and for the public access as well.

In 18th century the concept of public sphere is introduced in between the state and private.

Very firstly there were the people who used to talk on the tea shop. People gather on the tea shop and used to discuss freely because they have the access of gathering there. The people from the every sector used to gather there and discuss freely. But with the invention of media people used to gather the information from book and newspaper.Writing and printing, digital communication represents the third great innovation on the media plane. With their introduction, these three media forms have enabled an ever growing number of people to access an ever growing mass of information. These are made to be increasingly lasting, more easily. With the last step represented by Internet we are confronted with a sort of “activation” in which readers themselves become authors. Yet, this in itself does not automatically result in progress on the level of the public sphere.  Therefore the public sphere can be considered a metaphorical as well as physical space, including salons, coffee houses, newspapers, and books, all ways to promote knowledge, rational thinking, debate and discussion.

In 18th century

 

The public sphere grew during the nineteenth century with the increase of mass literacy and the press. As a historical process, after printing was invented by Johannes Gutenburg around the 1500’s. The press was fairly independent of the state, so government was consequently made aware of public opinion through the media, acting in a sense as a watchdog.  Private interest groups bargained with each other and the state, increasingly excluding the public. The media became increasingly confined both with the state and big business. Commercial imperatives came to oust informative and critical ones. The public therefore became seen as customers to be persuaded by PR, not citizens to be actively engaged with, and news itself came to be seen as a commodity. This is still of course relevant today.

The public sphere is a general concept that reflects upon the relationships of communication, media and democracy. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere questions when and under what conditions the arguments of mixed companies can become “authoritative bases for political action.”  (Calhoun, 1992, p.1) Habermas refers to this as communicative action. This in a sense implies activism as a logical conclusion for the communications process. The term “public” can be used as an adjective or as a noun. As an adjective, it can be said that the public means open, freely available, and held in common, for example a public library.

In 1999 A. Shapiro and in 2001 C. Sunsten said that internet is the public sphere because the things which can do in public sphere can be done in internet. They believe that the media or online media outlets organised in a way that enables many social groups and organisations to express different viewpoints. They explain that there exist links between channels of communication to a public arena, which is potentially possible through websites on the internet. The internet can be considered a decentred public sphere, as this computer mediated communication is distributive rather than unified. It has been said that the internet is “a network based extension of dialogue which suggests the possibility of re-embedding the public sphere in a new and potentially larger set of institutions.” Over the years there has been an attack on public institutions and an increase in privatisation, such as the closure of public libraries. The public can be considered the community, a set of people sharing common interests or objectives. This is a relatively recent idea. This notion can again said to be threatened through the increased atomisation of people, and more of a focus on the individual over the public. It could be said that there is a lacking sense of community in recent years.

Even though Habermas’ theory has been criticised, it is relevant to the political and social role of the media. The early version, before he responded to criticism, still contributed to ideas about public service media, the public interest and the media, and spin. It remains important because it is a critical view of the media in society. Its ideas can still be used to understand new media and communication such as the internet in the modern world.

In 1999 L. Lessing said that there is control in internet so, is not public sphere. Because internet is under the control and there are some restrictions and not the access of all the people as well.  To have the access of internet you need to be educated/literate, knowledge of electronic device and the access of internet. Because in public sphere there is the access of all people without any interference so, internet cannot be the public sphere.

Business person invested in the newspaper and other mass media. Then newspapers also turns into private sphere due to the advertisement which helps to loss public interest. According to him media are more private than the public. It has been argued that the media can be undemocratic because of the “expression of a single author”. The internet can however said to contain democratic public spheres  in some ways, for example many major news outlets online contain articles with comment sections where the public can not only reply to an article, but also reply to other commentators. The internet has therefore moved away from the ideas of mass communication slightly to a more desirable and liberating form of interpersonal communication in some instances. But obviously this is not the case all the time and only some online media outlets can actually be considered to be performing public sphere functions.

But if we are to consider the internet as a public sphere, then we must consider how democratically citizens views could have any impact. It should be considered that some public spheres might be considered weak public spheres too, as author Dahlgren has described, if there is little achieved by them. So many public spheres may exist, but have no successful political result. If we have established that the public sphere is the public space where all interests interact with one another in seeking to establish agreement or compromise about the direction of society. 

But access to this communication via the internet is dependent on the structures of economic and political power. The internet is not a censor free zone, and the state in many places can, and do, interfere with it acting as a public sphere. The internet has been blocked by countries such as North Korea, Iran, Burma and Saudi Arabia. However democratic states do not make use of more potential blocking technology because it would be an international embarrassment to go against their supposed democratic ideals. This goes against the public sphere ideal because everyone should have equal access to the information, and analysis that can enable them to know their rights and pursue those effectively.

This information inequality due to social inequality makes it difficult for the internet to be considered as a public sphere. However it can be argued that access to the internet does not mean people will use it in the sense of the public sphere. In fact from any social group, the majority of internet usage might in fact be using social networks, and buying goods. Buying goods adds to the commercialization process, and Habermas believes this weakens the public sphere. People also may be using the internet for their own privatised needs, such as modified social networks. This could be considered an internalization of social control, its personalization, individuation, and privitization in a sense has essentially been caused by the publicness of social interactions. Examples of this could be the privacy settings on social networking websites, although corporations seem to be able to get hold of some information to target advertising.

In conclusion it can be said that instead of the internet acting as a public sphere in itself, it is safer to suggest that certain websites and media content on the internet perform public sphere functions. It might be said that people are becoming increasingly atomised, and lacking a sense of community necessary for debate both in real life and online. People should have free access to public sphere because Public sphere helps people to participate in governance. For checking and balancing the government public sphere is effective.

References

·         https://rosejournalist.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/does-the-internet-constitute-a-new-public-sphere-if-so-in-what-ways/ 9 (seen on july 10)

·         https://mro.massey.ac.nz/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10179/2273/02_whole.pdf

·   http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/phil123-net/intro/dean_net_publicsphere.pdf (seen on july 10)

·         http://zizi.people.uic.edu/Site/Research_files/VirtualSphere.pdf july 10

·         http://www.resetdoc.org/story/00000022437 (seen on july 10)

·         http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/I/Internet.html (seen on july 12)