Public Tphere: The Historical Approach To Public Sphere

The historical approach to public sphere is to identify it as an arena of all inclusive rational discussion aiming towards consensus. Rather than being considered as platform for critical debate public sphere has become “the court before which public prestige can be displayed” (Dowey & Fenton, 2003, p. 186). Dahlberg argue that this type of a public sphere which eliminates the polarisation happening inside the sphere is failing to regard power shifts and democratic role of like-minded minority groups. (2007) Rather than taking public sphere as fixed and rigid term, a deliberative public sphere should be considered to be in a constant evolution enabling discursive contestation in the network society (Dowey & Fenton, 2003 and Dahlberg, 2007). Dahlberg argue that

828). Dahlberg argue that in this sphere media ought to facilitate diversity of views and power contestation but in many ways despite the potential of the world wide web, mainstream media has failed this mission. On one hand internet has expanded the ideal of public sphere by offering a platform to encounter vast range of views and voices but Dahlberg also notes that the amount of the voices does not necessarily mean diversity of the voices or power equality of the ideologies. (2007) Fragmentation of the audience, media technologies and content brings up the anxiety that instead of rationally critiquing and discussing alternative positions, the group ideology of like-minded individuals are simply reinforced in the online sphere. Although, Dahlgren write that some users may be actively seeking differentiating views and participating in a critical debate online (2007). This raises the question of today’s online news and social media commenting and discussion