Open AccessPublic Spheres in Private Spaces: How Capital Will Stop the Web’s Democratic Potential
Author(s) -
Kyle Brown
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
mcmaster journal of communication
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1710-257X
DOI - 10.15173/mjc.v10i0.282
Subject(s) - deliberation , the internet , politics , political science , democracy , public relations , conversation , information and communications technology , deliberative democracy , action (physics) , public sphere , sociology , internet privacy , media studies , world wide web , computer science , law , communication , physics , quantum mechanics
In the late 1990s and into the early part of the new millennium, the vast, open, seemingly free space of the Internet allowed for many communication and political science scholars to bask in the optimism of a new communication system that would allow for increased debate, deliberation, and flow of information (Kellner, 1998). Notable scholars like Castells (1996) and Benkler (2006) led the charge of conversation in regards to the network society, and the democratizing impacts that such communication technologies could potentially provide. More recently, Internet optimists, like Shirky (2008, 2011), have expressed the role that digital technologies, mostly in terms of the Internet, can have in allowing for widespread democratizing communication, social movements and political action in its ability to organize and mobilize individuals, both in online discussion spaces, and in the “real” world.