Political Theory of the Digital Constellation

Berg, Sebastian; Staemmler, Daniel; Thiel, Thorsten

doi:10.1007/s41358-022-00324-4

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…The development of a digital society, where every citizen has free access to the information space provided with up-to-date and accurate data, is the conceptual basis of the country's current political system. Thus, the world practice shows the results of progressive social development in the context of active interaction between the authorities and the population, which is achieved by the introduction of digitalisation at the political, social, economic, cultural and educational levels (Berg et al, 2022). At the same time, a new challenge is the formation of digital culture among citizens, which becomes a determining factor in their social and professional mobility (van Kersbergen & Vis, 2022).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Features of political psychology in a digital society: Managing and defining disinformation

Spytska

2023

SLS

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Public opinion management is reflected in a balanced approach to the information policy of the country, where the rationalistic outlook of the community promotes the social, economic, and political development of the state values. The formation of an individual’s political consciousness is subject to the influence of the information space in which they live, and this poses the relevance of investigating the issue of managing and defining disinformation at the stage of rapid digitalisation of society. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to determine the specifics of the development of patterns of political behaviour and consciousness of an individual in the process of forming a public stance in the context of socio-psychological, informational, and political determinants. The basis of the theoretical and methodological approach in this study was a combination of qualitative methods of systematic analysis of the specifics of psychological factors shaping political views and community behaviour, as well as content analysis of countering disinformation at the current stage of development of society. Furthermore, several surveys were conducted regarding the views and perceptions of the population on information in the media space in the country. The article also presents data that reflect the issue of the psychological phenomenon of society, in particular political judgments, moods, needs and motives of people, which are the result of social and political relations and are realised in a certain political behaviour and actions of both an individual and society as a whole. This article discusses the issues of combating disinformation in the digital space of the state and ways to improve the information literacy of the population. The results of the research are of practical value for educational, social, and psychological organisations that have a direct impact on the formation of legal behaviour and a conscious attitude to information processes in the digital space.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Features of political psychology in a digital society: Managing and defining disinformation

Spytska

2023

SLS

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“…Habermas has produced a rich description that moves back and forth between micro and macro aspects, and is keenly aware of how processes intertwine. By addressing social, economic, and technological drivers of development simultaneously, he manages a much more convincing diagnosis of the digital constellation (Berg et al, 2020(Berg et al, , 2022.…”

Section: The Limitations Of Habermas' Perspective: Undervaluing Citiz...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A polarizing multiverse? Assessing Habermas’ digital update of his public sphere theory

Thiel

2023

Constellations

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I must leave these investigations to younger colleagues; and can only speculate. For the driving force behind these changes is digital communication, which represents a profound evolutionary break not only in this respect. (Habermas, 2020a, p. 26-own translation) Asked whether he stands to his rather optimistic reassessment of the public sphere from 30 years earlier, Jürgen Habermas hinted in an interview in 2020 that he himself would not undertake an attempt to renew his seminal theory of the democratic public sphere. Fortunately for us political theorists, he reversed course shortly thereafter. Although just as a reaction to the edited volume by Martin Seeliger and Sebastian Sevignani, the essay Habermas wrote presents his most elaborate explanation of how he thinks about the digital transformation and the way it affects the democratic public sphere (Habermas, 2022a, in English: 2022b.In what follows, I want to zoom in on the question of how Habermas approaches digital communication and its societal effects. Like others in this symposium, I have read Habermas' new essay mostly as a re-assessment of his normative outlook on the overall trajectory of the public sphere in Western liberal democracies. In this respect, the essay represents a break with the trend toward an increasingly positive assessment of the resilience and self-healing powers of democratic publics. To some extent, Habermas returns to the original story of decay of the public sphere which characterized his original work in 1962. Without questioning Habermas' diagnosis as a whole, I differentiate the effects of the digital constellation on democracy and the public sphere, pointing out counterforces, opportunities for regulation, and a more optimistic conclusion. 1 I will proceed in three steps. First, I will reconstruct how Habermas' thinking on digital communication has developed in comparison to earlier statements on the matter. Second, I will discuss how the analysis can be challenged and extended by placing it in the context of the wider debate on democracy and digitalization. Third, I will comment on the conclusions that Habermas draws at the end of the essay.

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“…Overall, with regard to the development of a political theory of the public sphere, we arguably do not have a political theory of mediatised democracy in the proper sense (Hofmann, 2019). The political theoretical discourse on digital public spheres is conceptually too one-sided, and it overlooks the interplay of sociological, technological-media and economic factors (Benson, 2009; Berg et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Political Theory Of the Public Sphere In Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This term does not merely capture the fact that politics employs means of advertising and targeting (such instrumental appropriation is unsurprising); the development goes deeper: increasingly, a notion of democracy is being articulated in which the reading of singularised preferences, rather than the civic expression of opinion through active participation, is being interpreted as a democratic principle (Ulbricht, 2020: 431). The idea of representation as an active and reciprocal process that is creative and also stimulates the political public sphere is therefore withdrawn (Berg et al, 2020). In its place comes a conception of democracy that – shaped by the imperatives of the contemporary public sphere and its development – is little more than a struggle for attention, influence and data sovereignty.…”

Section: Digital Structural Change: Commercial Politicisation and The...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Media and the Digital Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Staab¹,

Thiel

2022

Theory, Culture & Society

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This article explores the question of how to understand social media following the Habermasian theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere. We argue for a return to political-economic fundamentals as the basis for analysing the public sphere and seek to establish a characteristic connection between digital-behavioural control and singularised audiences in the context of proprietary markets. In the digital constellation, it is less a matter of immobilising the citizen as a consumer but rather of their political activation – albeit in conditions under which commercial interests have primacy: privatisation without privatism.

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Political Theory of the Digital Constellation

Cited by 8 publications

References 94 publications

Features of political psychology in a digital society: Managing and defining disinformation

Features of political psychology in a digital society: Managing and defining disinformation

A polarizing multiverse? Assessing Habermas’ digital update of his public sphere theory

Social Media and the Digital Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

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