Technology and Global Public Sphere

The public sphere is considered to be a place where citizens can share information, debate issues and opinions, and challenge the interests of higher powers. How then do advancements in technology hinder the function of the public sphere? While information sharing on the internet is crucial to advancing the public sphere around the world, or global public sphere, this information has been proven to be exploitable by governments. Also the development of the media's role has significantly changed causing the idea of a global public sphere to questionable.

Online privacy can not be really expected. They say once the information is out there, there should be no expectation of privacy. Individuals are usually unaware of how governments and companies use the information they gather about them online. This information, though, is willingly shared as people search the internet, use mobile apps, and contact their friends and family. This allows governments and companies to intrude on their private lives.

The media could be considered a key part component of the public sphere, and its quality will depend on the quality of the media. The media provides that forum where people can gather and discuss leading public issues and controversies. The problem now is that people do not gather to watch the same news channel or radio station and read one or two national newspapers. Many countries have a variety of news outlets and newspapers with different agendas, and digital media is a whole other venue of information. Audiences are fragmenting rather than gathering, there is narrowcasting rather than broadcasting, and people are disappearing into micro-communities.

This is not to say that information isn't available, and there aren't global forums which make it seem like a global public sphere exists. However, this isn't easily accessible to everyone. The information isn't being broadcasted as mentioned above. People have to do their due diligence to seek some of that information out. Modern communication technologies does make it possible for anyone to find out the latest information on any global issue, but it doesn't unite everyone into consuming the same news and current affairs at the same time and discussing it as a public sphere would suggest.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 8, 2018 at 2:52 PM

    I like to think that technology is developing to solve some of these issues. Publicly distributed ledgers will hopefully become the future for data collection online. What counts most is transparency and knowing who has your data. From cross-border payments to voting (now being done in West Virginia via blockchain) decentralized technologies will help to put data back in the people's hands. On a side note, Tor (The onion router) and VPNs are available to most people to conceal their identity and location online. A lot of data is knowing what we click on and accept and not having a double standard when it comes to wanting both privacy and instant gratification.

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