Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Oct 20 - Notes on Habermas, etc.

I don't know if this is helpful to anyone (I know I have a hard time reading other people's notes), but here are my notes from class this week if it helps fill in any gaps for anyone.....

Oct 20 - What happens to Democracy in the age of the internet/new media?

-rise of internet in post-cold war era. Internet will bring democracy everywhere. But provides both challenges and opportunities for both demo. And authoritarian regimes.

Public sphere – central idea for today. Conceptual, not physical.

- have to understand public sphere to understand demo. There is a public arena where people come outside of private life to discuss/debate ideas of the day

1. private – connected to political authority (government) thru public sphere.

- civil society is diff than what the government says is the needs of society. Public sphere mediates between government and private. A place where needs of the people can discussed and made known to government. (people in streets protesting; public lecture series; town-hall mtgs. No intervention from outside (autonomous realm). Think of this as how we go from individual opinions to public opinions. Reason.

Habermas – key figure in public sphere.

-central question – how despite growth of rationality, age of enlightenment, scientific method, historical trajectory toward large public sphere, one gets hideous social consequences. Ex. Holocaust.

-Enlightenment is an unfinished process, rejects post-modern notions.

-think about institutions that are unique to humans – government.

-key – communicative rationality – if we believe in universal impulse toward communication, than we believe in reason?

-says what we have now is not natural, its historical – like Marx.

-tells a version of history of the public sphere developing & production and transference of information.

-this was published before growth of digital. General negative toward it.

-public sphere cam to be out of bourgeoisie culture. Where 1st time in history private individual came to discuss publicly the issues of the day, but not in political arena. Unlike feudal power, where head is sovereign, represents power. In democracy, people become caretakers of power and the ruler must come to serve the public. Pg 74.

-printing press makes info widely available to literate public. Pamphlets where people have opinion and then discuss. Rise of middle class – 1st time you have people with no political power but have money – feel they should have power. Decline of religion as determinate. Rise of science. People question religion. And growth of salon culture – places that were private (not government owned) but public and affluent white men could come and talk about the issues of the day. And growth in human rights related discourse – John Locke.

- Hab. Position is that this culture reaches height in 18th century, despite white male centeredness. Egalitarian and inclusive. The public sphere was mainly determined by political concerns of this subset. Public sphere was free from outside influence. But as commercialization increases, public sphere becomes more about growth in capital.

–pg 73 – idea behind freedom of information act. People have to have free access to information in order to form their own public opinion. Circulation of accurate information in primary.

-How do you know your “American”? culture and media produce a national togetherness. We watch the news and then know what an American sounds like. Ex. Watch 90210 and know what high school is like. We imagine ourselves as a group, separate from other groups – French. This starts with print culture establish nation language and sense of identity.

- Rise of mass media- negative role this plays in destruction of public sphere. Commercialization and entertainment take precedent. Ex. News networks moved from social service, making news at a loss. Now, what is in news is motivated by profit (ex. Goodnight & Good Luck). Primarily - not informing but entertaining. -Can see this in newspapers, too (Pg 76). Telling you how to interpret the news rather than just delivering it and letting public opinion form organically. Editorial decisions are increasingly moved to preproduction (the public wants to know about this...)

-Public sphere becomes a place dominated by advertising. Revenues drives the interests of the programming. Public relations manager – signifies death of public sphere. Everything becomes a sales pitch. One manipulates news to control consent rather than foster discourse.

- We now associate corporate identity over national identity (“what’s in your wallet?”). Becomes a public sphere in appearance only. Pg 78. Ex. Balloon boy. Not important news story but one everyone will watch, so it is covered. Media manufactures the event. Proven as farce, then media covers the covering of event, etc. The story is there because they covered it.


-even if we don’t agree with Habermas, use it to understand public sphere in relation to democracy.

- idea of digital utopia (we are all informed, log online and vote) vs. mass surveillance society (i.e. 1984, Smartmobs)

-could argue that internet is a poor substitute for public sphere. There is a huge diff in being involved politically and being involved with new technologies. Habermas’ public sphere is based of reciprocity and face to face. Despite growth in internet, we’ve seen decline in public sphere and rational public discourse (one has to seek this out). 80-90% are trolls “haha, I agree” stuff.

-do see increase in commoditization; more external influence from market into public sphere, more the ability to inform declines. The way to be on the internet is to buy. Often on internet, you just get series of choices (blue v. black background), rather than long discussion. Identities on internet are just as much about consumption as they are about political (these are my top ten songs to buy).

- freedom by internet is fictional. Élites maintain power. White affluent man can pose as something other than white affluent man.

-Now people can consume entire news cycles without knowing what going on worldwide. People share only with other people that consume what they consume. We don’t all tune in at same time, for the same news. But instead we have constant, breaking updates.

Poster-

-internet actual reinvent the way we think about community. pg 265.

-talk about public sphere, but distance ourselves from old idea.

-internet does not supplement, but creates something entirely new.

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