The Architecture of Political Spaces: Trolls, Digital Media, and Deweyan Democracy

Abstract

The problem of trolls exemplifies the challenges of building democratic communities in the digital environment of social media. Distinguishing trolls from activists can be difficult; democratic theorists have yet to adequately address how to prevent the former while remaining open to the latter. In this article, I outline a theory of democratic politics that takes space as a central element in shaping democratic interactions. Using the work of John Dewey, I draw out two key characteristics of democratic space: boundedness and flexibility. Using these criteria, I then evaluate Kinja, Gawker Media's commenting platform, both before and after trolls attacked the site in 2014. I find that in altering its boundaries to successfully protect against trolls, Kinja introduced a new problem: a lack of flexibility that continues to affect the possibility for democratic discourse on the platform. I conclude by suggesting how this theory of democratic space might shape future research.

Retracted: Digital Media Application Technology in Tourism Management Major VRAR Direction Talent Training Model Reform and Practice Research

“…A graphical description of the statistical data is shown in Figure 5: From the data in the figure, we can see that 25 of these 100 students are very interested in VR and AR, accounting for 25% of the total, indicating that VR and AR technology have a great impact on people and will develop in the future. The prospects are also very good and are suitable for contemporary technicians to learn [40][41]. Among them, 31 students are more interested in VR and AR, accounting for 31% of the whole, which is almost 1/3.…”

The Relational Public

“…Liberal democracies do not simply demand that everything always be open; to balance competing considerations, they have a variety of rules (e.g., trials are open, but juries meet in secret). Both physical and virtual spaces for public discussion, from legislative chambers to online forums, also vary in their “architectures” in ways that may be more or less conducive to democratic participation and the inclusion of dissident voices (Forestal 2017).…”

Constructing Digital Democracies: Facebook, Arendt, and the Politics of Design

“…Likewise, using the model of the modern city, thinkers like Iris Marion Young (1990) have argued for the value of heterogeneity and "unassimilated otherness" in creating conditions supportive of democratic politics, while more recently Bonnie Honig (2017) has explored the role of "public things" in constructing a body politic. But while political theorists have done important work in theorizing the role of space and architecture in constructing intersubjective relations in physical spaces, these insights are largely absent from similar discussions of digital spaces (but see Forestal, 2017;Wright and Street, 2007).…”