Internet and democratic public sphere development

Public sphere and intellectual discourses in Iran

Possibility of the effect of the Internet on 'Public Sphere' in Jurgen Habermas's Tthought?"

In recent decades, "Public Sphere" is one of the most important concepts in political science. Jurgen Habermas the famous thinker in this approach is the first to use this concept in critical thinking, where he demonstrates how networking is used for communicative actions. Habermas has not included the Internet as an important part of his thought process in the "public sphere", however, I think...

The Internet and Democratic Citizenship

Relations between the public and holders of political authority are in a period of transformative flux. On the one side, new expectations and meanings of citizenship are being entertained and occasionally acted upon. On the other, an inexorable impoverishment of mainstream political communication is taking place. The Internet has the potential to improve public communications and enrich democra...

Democratic and Anti-Democratic Regulators of the Internet: A Framework

We employ Lessig’s framework of regulation to conceptualize the relationship between the Internet and democracy. Lessig defines four classes of regulators, forces that control and define systems such as the Internet. They are markets, architectures, norms, and laws. We propose that a “democratic regulator” is a force that serves to enhance civil or political liberties. And we argue by example t...

Public Sociology and Democratic Theory

Sociology, as conceived by Comte, was to put an end to the anarchy of opinions characteristic of liberal democracy by replacing opinion with the truths of sociology, imposed through indoctrination. Later sociologists backed away from this, making sociology acceptable to liberal democracy by being politically neutral.The critics of this solution asked ‘whose side are we on?’ Burawoy provides a n...