- What is a public sphere?
- How are imagined communities - such as nations - affected by the mass media?
- How do you explain that audiences may be transformed into pro-sumers/prod-users by internet technology?
- Why is there a division between centripetal and centrifugal media?
- When can the internet be regarded as contributing to centrifugality?
The lecture
This lecture in my BA Course on Media & Politics at Lillehammer University College can be viewed below as a Prezi-presentation.
The literature:
Curran, J. et al. (2012). Misunderstanding the Internet. Chap. 2, 4. 68p.
Hodkinson, P. (2011). Media, culture and society. Chapter 9. 18p.
Watch relevant videos
Habermas' Public Sphere
Yochai Benkler on Truthiness and the Networked Public Sphere
Eli Pariser - The Filter Bubble: What The Internet Is Hiding From You
Watch more on the YouTube playlist
Useful links
- Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.
- Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Standage, T. (2013, June 22). Social Networking in the 1600s. The New York Times.
- Green, M. (2013). The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse. The Public Domain Review.
- Clinton, H. (2010, January 21). Remarks on Internet Freedom. U.S. Department of State. Both transcript and video of her speech is included.
- Jared Cohen: The Engine of Freedom. Google's Jared Cohen is one of the premier optimists about the internet's ability to create a free public sphere.
- Or check the sobering statistics from Freedom House and World Press Trends and the Economist's piece on A virtual counter-revolution.
- Tim Berners-Lee: Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality.
- David Hardake: How TV and the Internet are Changing Arab Politics. Full lecture on video.
- Gauntlett, D. (2008). Wikipedia explained. Theory.org.uk.
- Stanger, J. (2011, December 8). The “Digital Public Sphere” and the “Indifference of 25 Year Olds”. Center for Digital Information.
- Rasan, I. (2014, June 6). Graffiti: a new form of expression on the walls of Cairo.
- Tiezzi, S. (2014, August 20). China’s Quest to Build an “Influential and Credible” Media.
- Calhoun, C. J. (Ed.). (1992). Habermas and the Public Sphere. MIT Press.
- Dahlberg, L. (2001). Extending the public sphere through cyberspace. First Monday, (3)
- Etling, B., Roberts, H., & Faris, R. (2014). Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere: The Role of Blogs, Mainstream Media, and TV in Russia’s Media Ecology (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2427932). Rochester, NY: Berkman Center for Internet & Society
- Ichijo, A. (2013, June 17). The durability of nations and nationalism.
- Eriksen, T. H. (2006). Nations in cyberspace. ASEN conference, London School of Economics
- Karner, C. (2013, May 3). From collective myth to counterpublics: negotiating national identity in an age of global flows.
- Etling, B., Society, H. L. S. B. C. for I. and, & Project, I. & D. (2009). Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture, and Dissent. Internet & Democracy Project, Berkman Center for Internet & Society.
- Farrell, H., & Sides, J. (2010). Building a Political Science Public Sphere with Blogs. The Forum, 8, 10.
- Fuchs, C. (2014). Social Media and the Public Sphere. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 12(1), 57–101.
- Geiger, R. S. (2009). Does Habermas Understand the Internet? The Algorithmic Construction of the Blogo/Public Sphere. Gnovis, 10(1).
- Habermas, J., Lennox, S., & Lennox, F. (1974). The public sphere: An encyclopedia article (1964). New German Critique, (3), 49–55.
- Johannessen, M. R., & Følstad, A. (2014). Political Social Media sites as Public Sphere: A Case Study of the Norwegian Labour Party.
- Kellner, D. (2001). Techno-politics, new technologies, and the new public Spheres. Illuminations, January.
- Stray, J. (2011, November 29). What should the digital public sphere do?
- Valtysson, B. (2012). Facebook as a Digital Public Sphere: Processes of Colonization and Emancipation. tripleC - Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation, 10(1), 77–91.
