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The hidden structures of the digital public sphere

2023; Wiley; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/1467-8675.12664

1467-8675

Claudia Ritzi,

Gender, Feminism, and Media

In recent years, scholarly discourse has been dominated by concerns about the political public sphere: fake news and conspiracy theories are seen to have gained credence in "the age of social media," strong polarization characterizes public debates even in established democracies, and, information abundance notwithstanding, more and more people appear to be disengaged from political news. In addition, print is unlikely to have a future; the prospects look equally bleak for linear TV programs. While more voices can permeate the public debate, only a handful of media enterprises are in control of the information market. Again, the field has turned to Jürgen Habermas' groundbreaking perspective on the structural changes of the public sphere, first published more than 60 years ago. As before, it is displaying theoretical strength: better than any other approach, it seems capable of showing us the bigger picture. On top of that, Habermas again took up his seminal analysis in his latest contribution to political theory, a small book on the New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Habermas, 2022). In the book, Habermas emphasizes again the relevance of public discourse and deliberation for contemporary democracy and criticizes, rightly so, the distortions that capitalist structures and economic logic cause for democratic processes. While many of the patterns Habermas described in the original version of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1992 [1962]) are still relevant,1 it is also necessary to consider what has changed. On the one hand, this means examining aspects that have varied in Habermas' analyses. On the other hand, it means including aspects that are missing entirely from his reflections. To these ends, my remarks first look at the role of journalists and other actors in the public sphere. Despite the persistence of economic interests in mass media organizations, Habermas' latest work sometimes appears nostalgic for mass media journalism's democratic performance while neglecting the achievements or potentials of non-professional actors on digital media platforms. Drawing on the concept of "opinion leadership," I argue instead that we should concentrate our evaluations of the digital public sphere not only on professional expertise and norms, but also on the merits of independence, the ethos of community dedication, and on what determines trustworthiness. Second, my contribution focuses on the "sub-structures" of the public sphere that do not play an important role in Habermas' reflections, but which influence democratic processes in manifold ways. Digital media not only reinforce economic concentration, lead to a fragmentation of the political sphere, and provoke a less rational style of discourse. They also draw public attention away from the local or regional level and towards high-level politic, which—at the same time—provokes widespread depoliticization. Despite the growing availability of all kinds of information, regional and local politics tend to go unnoticed by most citizens. In addition, the number of people completely decoupled from political information is on the rise. I maintain that not only does this set into motion processes of re-nationalization and strengthens right-wing populism, but that it also challenges the embeddedness of political parties in society and it endangers representation of regional interests and perspectives in the public sphere. First, a self-regulating media system must maintain its independence vis-à-vis its environments while linking political communication in the political sphere with both civil society and the political center; second, an inclusive civil society must empower citizens to participate in and respond to a public discourse that, in turn, must not degenerate into a colonizing mode of communication. (Habermas, 2006, p. 420) In the tradition of the Frankfurt School's first generation, Habermas' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere argues that the risk of colonization is especially high under the conditions of a commercialized media system. In the early days of journalism, "private men of letters" (Habermas, 1992, p. 188) had limited themselves to transmitting the rational-critical debate of private people to a public, without pursuing economic aims. Together with the bourgeois salons, Habermas argues, their journalistic work paved the way for the creation of a more inclusive and institutionalized democratic public. However, the establishment of mass media in the 19th century led to a structural change of the public sphere: media contents adjusted to follow the wants and tastes of the masses, which were influenced by the advertising industry, thus blurring the lines between private and public concern in both form and content. As a result, publicity no longer reached its full democratic potential, and, fundamentally compromised by commercialization, "The history of the big daily papers in the second half of the nineteenth century proves that the press itself became manipulable to the extent that it became commercialized" (Habermas, 1992, p. 185). Neither film nor broadcasting could help improve the situation, since these technologies' degrees of economic concentration and their dependence on vast capital investments was even higher than that of newspaper publishing. This seems to point to the pessimistic conclusion that political debate in the commercialized public sphere has lost its independence and critical edge and that, instead, it has become sensationalized and trivialized. Without any doubt, Habermas' historical reconstruction is impressive. It offers a powerful narrative of the rise and fall of democratic institutions in the modern world. Nevertheless, a lot of criticism—some of it vigorous—has been directed toward his original theory.2 Not only was Habermas accused of idealizing the bourgeois public sphere and its actors, but his normative account of the proper role of media in democracy has also been challenged, and his analysis of the media system has been rejected as too static and monolithic (e.g., Baker, 2002; Benson, 2009; Ferree et al., 2002; Wessler, 2008). The theory's biggest challenger appears to be the success story that marked the history of democracy in the second half of the 20th century: in addition to the rise in the number of democratically ruled states, the expected "legitimation crisis" (Habermas, 1975) did not materialize. Because Habermas did not sufficiently consider the public sphere's internal organization and differentiation, so the argument goes, he was unable to acknowledge the potential and functionality of mass media. Instead, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is seen to offer a simplistic and biased perspective: "Habermas tends to judge the eighteenth century by Locke and Kant, the nineteenth century by Marx and Mill, and the twentieth century by the typical suburban television viewer" (Calhoun, 1992, p. 33). The natural conclusion of such a perspective, of course, is to overestimate the degeneration of the public sphere. Regarding Habermas' latest writings about a "new" structural change of the public sphere (Habermas, 2021, 2022), the important question is whether this critique still stands. In the digital media world, the suburban television viewer has, of course, to be substituted by a—probably right-wing—social media warrior, who spends a lot of time in polarized echo chambers, tends to trust similar-minded online-"friends," and who is thus at high risk of no longer being able to differentiate between facts and fake news. His counterpart is a mass media journalist, a member of the editorial staff of a newspaper or broadcasting station, who acts based on professional expertise and norms, making "valuable contributions" (Habermas, 2022, p. 23) to the public sphere that help educate citizens. Today, according to Habermas, it is not the (low) quality of mass-media journalism that primarily challenges the democratic functioning of the public sphere, but the competition it faces in compelling the public's attention and, consequently, the economic problems that arise from shrinking advertising revenues. For Habermas (2022), the "two decisive parameters of public communication" (p. 40) are range and deliberative quality—and whether the democratic throughput-process succeeds depends on the behavior of the recipients. While the younger Habermas saw primarily media companies and political and societal elites in charge, the older one focuses on the audience. This shift is remarkable, for economic concentration in the global media-market has risen substantially, and, so far, few political measures have been taken in Western democracies to effectively regulate the power of digital media companies like Google, Facebook, or Twitter. On the one hand, Habermas' "audience turn" (Habermas, 2022, p. 56) mirrors the empowerment that goes along with the digital revolution: not only can anyone receive political information, but anyone has also the ability to be heard. On the other hand, this is a rather bridled perspective on the state versus individual responsibility for a leftist theorist. In this regard, Habermas does not sufficiently consider the complexity of media use, trust relations, and role differentiations. However, the picture we paint in Political Science of the digital public sphere should neither be marked by nostalgia nor remain incomplete. Habermas' "new structural change" convincingly argues that fragmentation, post-truth politics, the dictate of entertainment, and polarization endanger deliberation in contemporary democracies. It considers the emancipatory potential that the expanded media structure offers. As a next step, we should develop an analytical frame that allows for a closer reconstruction and a more precise analysis of information processes and will-formation within the new structures of the public sphere. In this constellation, media consumers do not often reflect much on whether information is provided by professionals, friends, or others; they react to whatever appears on their timelines, focusing on their individual networks and on appealing claims. So, the formal status and the competence of information-givers become less relevant, and the credibility and relevance of their messages depend more strongly on personal relations and networks. Therefore, any systematic analysis of characteristics of the digital public sphere should indeed start with the audience, for habits, routines, interests, intentions, and experiences influence the political information process more strongly than ever before. A promising avenue in research is thus a focus on "opinion leadership"—despite the fact that this theoretical approach developed by Lazarsfeld et al. (2021/1944) is even older than The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Yet, recapitulating the analysis of information networks, focusing on the interplay of mediated and direct communication, and investigating the conditions under which trustworthiness and credibility are attributed can help us identify the roles that different types of actors play in today's public sphere, track developments over time, and evaluate the impact of new media on discourse quality. Potentially, this not only allows us to assess the relative importance of professional media actors, established elites, or prominent "influencers," but also to uncover hidden structures that shape political deliberation in contemporary democracies. For example, this could equip us to identify today's "private men of letters," evaluate their influence, and analyze their resources and motives. Such an analysis might not only help mitigate our concerns about the risks of digital media. In addition, it may create the foundation for media policy advice and could thus help shape the complex digital media "universe" (Ritzi, 2021) itself. As well founded and important as the critiques of Habermas and others on the digital public sphere are, because there is no going back to a pre-digital media landscape, political theory should develop strategies for democratically shaping public communication and political discourse in the 21st century. The imperative to take a closer look at the public sphere's internal organization extends to the content that gains attention in the digital age. One important—but in the literature rarely discussed—consequence of the decreasing subscription of newspapers (see Breunig et al., 2020; Lang, 2003) is the development of information blindness. Information on local or regional politics seems to reach significantly fewer people than it used to, and there is no indication for a contradicting development in the digital sphere. The focus of hashtag activism and of debates in social media echo chambers and online news media lies predominantly in national or even supra-national politics. The economies of scale that drive platform companies might be one reason for this concentration on topics that are of interest to large numbers of people. That only a small percentage of online users are willing to pay for journalistic contents is another (see Jarren & Fischer, 2021). In addition, communication culture appears to have changed: political discussants seem to bond less over territorial proximity than over shared interests or ideologies; in consequence, local and regional politics are pushed from the agenda. This development is alarming because local and regional politics are important avenues for different forms of political participation, sites of political socialization, and indispensable suppliers of support for party headquarters. The legitimacy of political decision-making suffers from the growing distance between citizens and politics or even their alienation from each other. We can also expect that disregard for lower level political decision-making will contribute to shrinking levels of political interest and also that parties are going to face even tougher challenges for recruitment. Given the abundance of information in the digital age, we are confronted with a paradoxical situation: while in the 20th century, the supply of regional and local information—mainly delivered by profitable newspapers—did not depend on political intervention, today media politics must innovate if it wants to ensure ample availability of news on platforms and forums that correspond to usage patterns and preferences. A content-oriented funding system—as practiced in New Zealand—could be one cornerstone of modern media policy, but of course, national contexts, institutions, traditions, and characteristics must be considered as well. Constructing an attractive information landscape is not only necessary to prevent blind spots regarding local or regional information. In addition, it may help prevent particularly younger citizens from becoming politically disconnected. Misinformation and information biases are not the only illnesses of the digital public sphere. The Internet also allows non-politicized media usage to an unprecedented extent: users can enjoy endless entertainment with streaming platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime without being interrupted even once by news or other aspects of real community life. The motive for such media usage might not only be political disinterest, but also "strategic illiteracy" (Plaut, 2022), cultivated to avoid the challenges of overwhelming information supply, disturbing complexity, and potential manipulation. So far, individuals who avoid information that might otherwise reduce their pleasure or increase stress levels constitute a minority. Nevertheless, in "the age of post-truth," their numbers can be expected to rise. According to several studies in participation research, the "strategic illiterates" within the group of politically disinterested people share typical socio-economic characteristics that might trigger or reinforce (perceived) representation biases (see, e.g., Schäfer & Zürn, 2021). Political education might help empower some of the disconnected and strengthen their internal efficacy—but success is bound to individual openness and interest. Instead, a media landscape that does not provoke strategic disconnection is likely to prove more effective in keeping the citizenry in touch with politics. is compromised, when the public sphere as an infrastructure is no longer able to direct the citizen's attention to relevant topics which need to become subject to public decision-making as well as when it proves unable to provoke the formation of competing – and this means qualitatively filtered – opinions. (Habermas, 2022, p. 65, own translation) However, beyond frequently discussed phenomena like Trump's fake news regime and Corona-denying echo chambers in parts of Germany, the digitalized public sphere has many more sub-structures. Since the invention of Gutenberg's printing press, a myriad of social, economic, and political forces have shaped the political public sphere. Over the past 30 years, globalization and technological innovations have led to a situation that is more complex and fast-changing than ever. Therefore, in the digital age, it is all the more important that contemporary democratic theory not only describes the different structures and sub-structures of the public sphere and discusses their implications for democracy, but that it also focuses on their relations to each other. Thus, we are now faced with the extremely difficult task of figuring out whether the observed forces and structures are part of a balanced system that, overall, fulfills the public sphere's democratic functions—or whether we are being confronted with dangerous, anti-democratic trends.3 The more indicators we find that speak to the latter, the more important it becomes for democratic theory to work on possible solutions as well as to criticize the status quo. It must do so in an interdisciplinary manner in order to be more innovative, more purposeful, and considerably more critical and provocative than are the rather vague references to the significance of journalism and political education, which currently inform most contributions in democratic theory. We must take a closer look into the internal structures of the public sphere than Habermas' analysis does, which focuses on the groundwork instead of tracing and explaining the different fragments of the digital public sphere. These new perspectives might most easily link up with the theoretical perspective on "complex democracies" (Benson, 2009, p. 17) that integrates aspects of the deliberative and the elitist (gatekeeper) model as well as constructivist perspectives. In any case, they will have to focus on media systems and media regulations as well as on cultural influences and societal changes. "Today, 'Public Sphere' has become almost a cliché and is perhaps one of the most frequently used words in sociology of media and communications," stated Rodney Benson (2009, p. 179) more than 10 years ago regarding the impact of Habermas' works. An inherently broad concept like the public sphere will always be at risk of being imprecise. However, given the relevance of deliberation studies in the digital age, "public sphere" will continue to be a pivotal term in contemporary scholarly discourse. Habermas' latest works provide proof that it is worth sticking with the term: the structural transformations of the public sphere are of great importance for democratic quality and stability. To analyze relevant changes carefully—those that are obvious as well as those more hidden—will help shape public discourse, media systems, and normative orientations in a democratic fashion. By embracing this ambition, the "public sphere" will always be a fundamental perspective—and therefore much more than a cliché. The author thanks Simone Chambers, Addye Susnick, and Alexandra Zierold for their comments, which improved the final version of this article. Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Claudia Ritzi is an associate professor of Political Theory at Trier University. Her research interests focus on contemporary democratic theory, democratic quality, the public sphere and digitalization.