the Virtual Transformation of Public Sphere

The essays in the volume re-examine the debate centred on the Habermasian notion of the public sphere and ask whether the structural transformations of the public sphere by new media technologies are an indication of a degenerate consumerist society, or that of a more egalitarian and democratic public culture. This book explores how new media technologies such as e-mails, online forums, blogs and social networking sites have helped shape new forms of public spheres. Offering new readings of Jürgen Habermas’s notion of the public sphere, scholars from diverse disciplines interrogate the power and possibilities of new media in creating and disseminating public information; changing human communication at the interpersonal, institutional and societal levels; and affecting our self-fashioning as private and public individuals. Beginning with philosophical approaches to the subject, the book goes on to explore the innovative deployment of new media in areas as diverse as politics, social activism, piracy, sexuality, ethnic identity and education. The book will immensely interest those in media, culture and gender studies, philosophy, political science, sociology and anthropology.