The Internet and differentiation in the political public sphere

Abstract

Habermas’s main question in his keynote address to the media researchers at the ICA conference in Dresden in June 20th 2006 was whether deliberation in the public sphere actually does introduce an epistemic dimension to political decision-making, ie. whether the public sphere can bring new insights and solutions to politics today. As known, Haber-mas has previously given arguments for the potential of the public sphere, but what about the current condition in western democracies? The volume of political communication in the public sphere has expanded dramatically, but it is at the same time dominated by non-deliberative communication. Habermas argues that there is a lack of an egalitarian face-to-face interaction and reciprocity between speakers and addressees in a shared practice of collective decision-making (Habermas 2006, 414). More importantly, the very dynamics of mass communication, Habermas claims, are driven by the power of the self-regulated system of the mass media to select, and shape (dramatise, simplify, polarise) information. Quite interesting, he presents something of a media-centric argument, suggesting that the increasing influence of radio and TV, fosters increasing ignorance, apathy and low-level trust in politics: ‘The data I have mentioned suggest that the very mode of mediated com-

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