Showing papers in "Communication Theory in 2023"

Artificial intelligence and the public arena

Abstract: The public arena relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to ever greater degrees. Media structures hosting the public arena—such as Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube—increasingly rely on AI-enabled applications to shape information environments, autonomously generate content, and communicate with people. These applications affect the public arena’s functions: make society visible to itself and provide spaces for the formation of publics and counterpublics. We offer a framework that allows for the conceptualization and empirical examination of AI’s structural impact on the public arena. Based on this perspective, we argue that the growing uses of AI will lead to a strengthening of intermediary structures that can exercise a greater degree of control over the public arena. In addition, the data-driven nature of most AI-applications threatens to push challenges to the political status quo out of sight and obstruct the assessability of AI-enabled interventions.

The public sphere as a dynamic network

Abstract: Abstract This article proposes to conceptualize the public sphere as a dynamic network of actors and contents that are linked with each other by communicative actions. This perspective allows us to theoretically derive and empirically describe the entire range of small to large network structures and their evolution over time. First, we will define the elements of these networks, which include the actors, content, communicative actions, and content relations. Based on these entities, four communicative roles (producer, recipient, curator, isolate) will be distinguished. Second, we will summarize how these actors perceive the communicative situation and how they select from behavioral options. Third, we will show how this combines with the network dynamics and outcomes that are discussed in the different lines of research. This provides not only the basis for understanding the link between the communicative actions on the micro-level and macro-level structures, but also new avenues for normative discussions.

When debates break apart: discursive polarization as a multi-dimensional divergence emerging in and through communication

Abstract: “Polarization” is a common diagnosis of the state of contemporary societies. Yet, few studies theorize or systematically analyze how polarization evolves in media content. To guide future empirical studies, we introduce a public sphere perspective on polarization. Discursive Polarization, defined as divergence emerging in public communication, may disrupt the public sphere if left untamed. Its analysis should combine the study of ideological polarization (increasing disagreement about issues) and affective polarization (growing disaffection between groups) as evolving in communication. Both processes may be measured in media content. We propose a framework combining the study of journalism and digital communication networks, investigating (1) content and (2) networked interactions regarding both political issues and social identity formation. The exploration of how the public sphere is disrupted in the process of Discursive Polarization may help us to understand the wider social phenomenon of polarization: before societies break apart, debates break apart.

The public sphere and contemporary lifeworld: reconstruction in the context of systemic crises

Abstract: For the Habermasian theory of the “public sphere” to make sense in the 2020s, it must be able to address the modern tendency toward global systemic crises. To examine the relevance of the Habermasian public sphere to today’s deeply interconnected digital world, this article provides a selective reading of Habermas’ writings on the public sphere, examining how he developed the concept from its conceptual core (1962) through his Legitimation Crisis (LC; 1973) and The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA; vol. 1 [1981] 1984, vol. 2 [1981] 1987). Working from the perspective of the “differentiated lifeworld,” we show here that the theory’s background assumptions about reality (truth), solidarity (justice), personality (authenticity) are now being exposed and destabilized by current crisis tendencies and imaginaries. Here, we examine three exemplary (and interconnected) global disruptions that expose these assumptions: the climate crisis, the intensification of financial inequality in the Global North, and the rapid push toward datafication. Through our examination of whether the public sphere as Habermas conceived of it can exist in today’s world, we provide a more expansive form of criticism of the public sphere (which is usually critiqued on the narrow grounds of the rational bias of communicative rationality). Here, we underscore the fundamental importance of addressing the complex system-lifeworld dynamics that are today re-conceptualizing and re-contextualizing the “public sphere” in this era of contemporary global crises.

In search of the (Black) international: The Black Scholar and the challenge to communication and media studies

Abstract: In the 1970s, the journal The Black Scholar (TBS) published two special issues largely under-read in communication studies, titled “Black Media I” and “Black Media II.” The lack of engagement in these special issues by communication scholars represents not merely disciplinary differences but it also signifies different trajectories that both fields take on Marxism. Communication studies would take Europe as its starting point, while Black studies would not dismiss Europe, but would take the Third World as its point of departure. In the process, media and communication analysis in TBS holds more critical potential than what currently exists in communication studies approaches to both Blackness and Marxism. Using a sociology of knowledge approach, I argue that the place to start a wholistic, Marxist, Black studies analysis of communication begins not in communication studies, but in Black studies, which TBS’s special issues are representative of.

Operationalizing distribution as a key concept for public sphere theory. A call for ethnographic sensibility of different social worlds

Abstract: This article takes issue with public sphere theories’ lack of focus on the consequences of social inequality. Citizens divide the work of following politics between them, and we need a cohesive conceptualization of such divisions, through and beyond today’s intrusive media and with attention to social inequalities. Instead of ideals of fully informed individual citizens, I propose we take the empirical fact of distribution of citizens’ public connection as a starting point and anchor our theoretical ideals in the social world with an “ethnographic sensibility.” Doing so facilitates an operationalized concept of distribution of citizens’ public connection into four elements: issues, arenas, and communicative modes, which citizens variously rely on over time. With such an operationalization, we can assess when and for whom the distribution of public connection goes too far and disfavors certain citizens. This helps bring public sphere theory beyond the conundrum of our societies’ paradoxically uninformed citizens.

Recentering power: conceptualizing counterpublics and defensive publics

Abstract: In this manuscript we consider the inconsistent ways the concept of “counterpublics” has been taken up in the field to make the claim that considerations of social power must be recentered in the theorization of publics. To do this we provide an in-depth genealogy of the concept of counterpublics, analyze its use by critical scholars, and then consider its application in empirical studies of digital networks and right-wing publics. We argue that scholars studying digital and far-right publics in particular must take the critical analysis of power seriously. Through this lens, we show that classifying right-wing movements as “defensive” is more theoretically and empirically accurate. In doing so, we conceptualize public spheres as indelible outgrowths of social structures, even as they work to transform them in turn, and provide a framework for scholars to understand public spheres through the lens of history, social differentiation, relations, resources, and access.

From “the” public sphere to a network of publics: towards an empirically founded model of contemporary public communication spaces

Abstract: “The” public sphere is now irretrievably fractured into a multiplicity of online and offline, larger and smaller, more or less public spaces that frequently (and often serendipitously) overlap and intersect with one another. This diverse array of what have been described variously as public spheres, public spherules, platform publics, issue publics, or personal publics nonetheless serves many of the same functions that were postulated for the public sphere itself. However, while the communicative structures, functions, and dynamics of many such spaces have been studied in isolation, we still lack a more comprehensive model that connects such case studies in pursuit of an overarching perspective. This article sets out a fundamental toolkit for the development of such an empirically founded model of the contemporary spaces for public communication. It identifies the crucial conceptual building blocks and empirical approaches that may be combined to produce genuinely new insights into how the network of such spaces is structured, and in turn structures our everyday experience of public communication.

Democracy in the digital public sphere: disruptive or self-corrective?

Abstract: Abstract The article assesses the post-democratic scenario of a public sphere that is detached from democracy. By describing how public spheres are transformed by the Internet, it is asked whether the co-constitutive dynamics between the public sphere and democracy still apply in the digital age, or whether we are witnessing an ultimate rupture. The field of contemporary public sphere struggles in response to the digital transformations is discussed in terms of: (1) the rebalancing of privacy and publicity; (2) the truth orientation and rationality of public debates; and (3) the modes of empowerment of the will of the people. By evaluating the empirical evidence for the deep disruptions of the public sphere and democracy, it will become possible to develop a better understanding of the self-corrective mechanisms of public sphere resilience and renewal in the digital age.

Social cohesion in platformized public spheres: toward a conceptual framework

Abstract: Social cohesion is crucial for democratic societies since it unites individuals who do not have a direct relationship with each other. By representing social heterogeneity and enabling public debate, the public sphere is vital for fostering social cohesion. However, platformization—that is, the establishment of social media platforms as an infrastructure for public communication—challenges the constitution of publics and thus raises the question of whether the public sphere is still able to fulfill its cohesive function. Expanding on this question, our article systematically theorizes how platformization at the meso-level induces the emergence of a platformized public sphere at the macro-level. The article presents a framework that allows us to analyze: (1) which actors constitute publics in the age of platformization; (2) the logics according to which this happens; and (3) to what extent these logics, consisting of social media affordances and algorithms, contribute to the cohesive performance of platformized publics.

Editorial: Reconceptualizing public sphere(s) in the digital age? On the role and future of public sphere theory

Abstract: Theories of the public sphere—or more recently, of plural public spheres—are core elements of communication and media research. A lively and dynamic debate exists about the respective theories, and the approaches employed to do so have diversified in recent years. This special issue of Communication Theory aims to assess the role and future of public sphere(s) theory in digital societies: if, and where, are concepts of the public sphere(s) still useful and needed, which criticisms are (still) valid, which not, which new ones might be necessary, and which concepts need to be developed or elaborated to respond meaningfully to the digital transformation? This editorial introduces the topic of and contributions to the special issue as well as nine theses on the development of public sphere(s) theorizing.