Digital Media Create New Public Spheres and Increasingly Alter Our Political Life - Literature review Example

Digital Media Create New Public Spheres and Increasingly Alter Our Political Life. Discuss This ment, Making References to Theory and Giving Examples Introduction Journalism and mass media communication are regarded as the two important disciplines relating to the field of investigation as well as exposing the social concept to mass audiences. These disciplines mainly evolved during the 17th century that found relevance with media including newspapers, televisions, magazines and online platforms among others. Specially mentioning, journalism often plays an intermediary role in evaluating the varied information sources and reaching the same to end audiences. On the other hand, the concept of mass media communication is centred on circulating related studies and information in a wider and appropriate manner. The prior role of journalism and mass media communication is to form appropriate public relation in the form of presenting different studies efficiently. It can be inferred that with the increasing use of internet and digital communication, the societal life of the inhabitants has been largely influenced. In this regard, digital mass communication in the current scenario is becoming an integral part in the life of the people and likewise the societies are identified to be remaining highly reliant on this particular communication mean (Eribo & Tanjong, 2002; Aggarwal & Gupta, 2001). Notably, the use of digital media in this modern day context lays in communicating with other people for varied reasons. It is to be affirmed that the messages, which are communicated through digital media, not only pursue any sort of agenda to the public, but also assemble their opinions towards reaching into a valid conclusion. Besides, digital media also helps the community members to acquire a better idea about the prevalent societal problems and likewise take informed decisions to address and mitigate these problems. It can be apparently observed that journalism, radio, newspapers, magazines, television, blogs, websites, mobile apps and social media are the key tools based on which the people of this modern day context are interconnected with each other. In this regard, with the diversification and significant growth of mass media, the scope of communication has been expanded towards the utilisation of digital applications by a considerable extent (Eribo & Tanjong, 2002; Aggarwal & Gupta, 2001). In this present day context, digital media has evolved as the rich and diversified source of information and led people no longer dependent over a single information source, which raised flexibility in making greater choices between different media. Moreover, advancement in digital media also reduces the context of omnipresence and people are no longer been isolated as compared to others. This endures to form mutual corporation of public and private corporation by forming a space for public sphere. Likewise, the reliability and speediness of flow of key political decisions in form of news are easily been spread socially (Eribo & Tanjong, 2002; Aggarwal & Gupta, 2001). Correspondingly, in relation to the above context, the essay intends to address and explore the impact along with the importance of digital media in creating new public spheres and increasingly altering the political life scenario of the societies. While discussing this vital factor, various theories and examples have been taken into concern for obtaining a comprehensive understanding about the aforesaid subject matter. Chapter 1 Introduction of Concepts In this present day context, it is quite difficult to separate public spheres as well as public discourse from digital media. Evidently, public opinion in the present context is facilitated by numerous media such as newspapers, television talks and magazines. However, digital media has been evolved as the most widely used channel of expressing opinions. Digital media has heralded as a public sphere with news channels for promoting public sphere and political communication. Notably, Social networking sites (SNSs) have aided people to form groups and organise protests for varied purposes. In several regions of the world such as Europe, Middle East and North Africa, a new structure of political communication is seen to be apparent, which is radically influenced by the ‘digitally mediated interpersonal communication’ (Fulya, 2012). Coleman (2012) used the concept of ‘Anonymous’ to describe the impact of digital media on the creation of public spheres. Accordingly, ‘Anonymous’ in the view of Coleman (2012) have no frontrunners, no categorized structure, nor any physical epicentre. To illustrate, Coleman (2012) stated that a small group of individuals in Anonymous involve hackers who are skilled programmers, system administrators and security researchers. Similarly, in order to describe the large group, Coleman (2012) recognised a new conception namely “geeks.” Accordingly, these geeks are identified to hold considerable digital media literacy involving several computer related skills and substantial technical know-how. These larger groups are identified to be politically engaged and perpetrate protestors (Coleman, 2012). Traditionally, newspaper was the important source of information through various facts, key issues and practices can be ascertained. However, with the increased level of globalisation and development of technologies, there has been significant evolution of digital media in the background of mass media communication. The evolution of digital media can be mainly traced back with the development of computers and video tape in television industry. The key advancement of digital media occurs with the establishment of the computer networks namely ARPANET in 1969 and NSFNET in 1986 that leaded towards drastic revolution in the field of media communication. Thus, it can be affirmed that the concept of digital media has evolved decades back and the trend continuously followed in this modern scenario with the introduction of new technologies and mass media, which replaced the traditional information source or media. Subsequently, new media technologies including internet and other form of digital communication have profoundly squeezed inhabitants’ time and space through advanced features. The formation of diverse computer networks, telephone connectivity, satellites and other technological developments along with the collapse of traditional mass media are regarded as certain important contributory factors towards the key revolution experienced in digital media. The prime reason for this evolution can be ascertained as the availability of resources that make digital revolution to get integrate with sounds, graphics, images, texts and photographs. In this similar context, it has been argued that advancements and transformations in media have primarily altered the societal communication procedure and certainly made public sphere more effective with mutual integration of different community approaches (Gerhards & Schäfer, 2009). Correspondingly, the evolution in the sector of digital media generates significant opportunities and also provides major threats to the users. In terms of opportunities, it can be inferred that the conception of digital media is deemed to be much effective in reaching to mass target audiences and on the other hand generates significant threats in provoking the conduct of varied illegal activities. It is projected that the evolution of digital marketing will possess certain multidimensional responses and reactions because of the development of digital and online media, which certainly empowers the individuals to interact with the life of others. Furthermore, Jurgen Habermas, who proposed the theory of public sphere, argued about its effective functioning in the context of prerequisite modern societies. Conceptually, public sphere serves as a forum, which tends to discuss relevant issues and allows the individuals to acquire better understanding about various key issues related to societal development, political, economic and other elites (Dahlgren, 2005). During the period of first few decades of early 21st century, the transformation in the flow of communication and the rise in the development of digital technologies have certainly standardised the societal conditions throughout the globe at large. It can be apparently observed that digital media provides inhabitants, a platform to discuss and identify the major problems by interacting and working co-ordinately with considering mutual interests and judgements to make informed decisions in any future unforeseen scenario. Thus, the evolution of digital media provides significant opportunity to political leaders and actors to get connected and conduct online campaigning, policy advocacy, organizing and lobbying different prospective for supporting major political changes. Based on the notion of participatory model of public sphere, it can be affirmed that communication process will become highly effective, if it involves various participants who can present their viewpoints based on any argument or disagreement. In this similar context, digital media not only facilitates mass citizen participation, but also reduces the possibility of bias decision making by a certain level (Dahlgren, 2005). Likewise, the major pitfall in the domain of social media lay in the fact that the democratic environment faces significant challenges in the field of public debate and research literature. These challenges could eventually lead towards increasing the issues in relation to public sphere with lower level of gaining opportunity of mass participation. However, the advancement in media communication makes wider availability of new information utilising the advanced communication technologies affecting all spheres of people’s life in the modern society. It will be vital to mention that revolution in digital media impose significant impact over the political public spheres through the social media wherein it provides the scope to monitor and criticise the state and group. Prior to the advancement of digital media, mass media has recognised to be adequate in conducting democratic politics and public opinion on public spheres, as the information flow is deemed to be taking shape in an unidirectional manner. However, the flow of information during such period was identified to be quite unidirectional as well as vertical, certainly led difficulties in forming appropriate democratic communication between general public and leaders (Dahlgren, 2005). Historical Positioning The emergence of internet is widely being recognised as one of the most influential technological advancements of the 21st century. Currently, internet is perceived to be omnipresent with billions of users spread across the globe. It is worth mentioning in this regard that internet, in this contemporary era, has taken the shape of digital media and is used for several purposes such as interacting and communicating with others. It cannot be denied that the emergence of internet or digital media has undoubtedly offered people in the society with numerous advantages, but at the same time, it has also resulted in arousal of certain challenges. In the present scenario, the theme of digital media and public sphere can be seen to occupy a major place amid the research agendas as well as in an intellectual enquiry. These themes are also seen to be gradually influencing the studies relevant to political communications (Dahlgren, 2005). Over the years, numerous theories and views have been propagated by different authors and scholars on public spheres and political communication. Normative theorists like Jürgen Habermas can be seen quite critical with respect to ‘old’ mass media that was largely being viewed to hinder collective communication. However, the evolution of internet is perceived to make marginalised groups and arguments that were apparent in the past more visible to a larger public (Gerhards & Schäfer, 2009). Jürgen Habermas in his work discussed about the public spheres in which he defined the concept of public spheres “as a neutral social space for critical debate among private persons who gather to discuss matters of common concern in a free, rational and in principle disinterested way” (Fulya, 2012). According to Habermas, three fundamental institutional criteria are essential for the existence of public sphere. In this regard, the first criterion, as recognised by Habermas included, ‘disregard of status’. This criterion stresses that if the status is disregarded, greater argument will espouse against the hierarchy levied by the society. The second criterion, which denotes the essentiality for the existence of public sphere, was identified to be ‘common concern’. Notably, this criterion reflects that the cultural products as well as information take the shape of common concerns amid the private citizens, which eventually result in the emergence of other issues of common concerns. The last and third precondition associated with the existence of public sphere is recognised to be ‘inclusivity’. According to this criterion, commercialisation of cultural products and information makes public sphere inclusive. This criterion stresses that the public sphere is closely tied ‘within a more inclusive public of private individuals’ (Fulya, 2012). Thus, in order to explain the digital media as public sphere, it is vital to consider the institutional criteria of ‘disregard of status’, ‘common concern’ and ‘inclusivity’ propounded by Habermas. It is vital to note that within the digital media, these three criteria are adhered on one or the other way. Evidently, people in the digital era are identified to access the digital media or simply internet through virtual identities that are similar to the identities shared by them in reality. Notably, if an individual possesses the necessary skills to access digital media and the socio-economic status allows such individual to access the same, there lays a greater propensity of using digital media by the particular individual. The use of digital media is not restricted to private individuals only but there are other factors such as online journalists, web-based interest groups and organisations that can access the same to acquire valuable information and use the same for varied purposes. Digital media such as social Networking Sites (SNSs) are argued to possess the potentiality of forming a public sphere for the dissemination of hegemonic discourses as well as mobilising public opinion outside the state control (Dahlberg, 2007). On the contrary, the classical liberal theory views digital media as a channel of communication used by private citizens to interact with the respective states or the governments of a nation. The approach of radical democratic in this context holds different views regarding digital media that resemble as an intricate expression of three channels of communications including vertical, horizontal and diagonal channels prevailing between individuals, groups and governments. Therefore, it is apparent that the role of media is viewed in an extended manner, which includes the development of systems of democracies by revealing the decisions taken by the organisations to public disclosure and debate (Berry, 2013). In relation to the digital media, this deliberative public sphere is advocated to relate with the extent and quality of information disseminated online (Dahlberg, 2007). Furthermore, unlike mass media, the conception of digital media is viewed as a dynamic system, promoting radical democracy at large. Digital media is recognised to help marginalised groups who are barred from the mainstream public sphere. In this regard, digital media enables such groups or individuals to create their own deliberative link ups by using digital media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn among others that allow them to participate in conducting dominant practices. One of the three major inferences, which can be drawn in this regard is that digital media is argued to offer communication spaces to group members connected with marginalised discourses for creating counter-publics against dominating public sphere. The other inference implies that digital media is recognised to promote interactivity and assists in reaching politically diverse counter-publics with shared opinions towards forming counter-public groups or networks of radical discourses resulting in creation of more powerful oppositional debates. Moreover, in terms of explaining the other inference, it is to be affirmed that the digital media is advocated to support the contestation of both online and off-the-grid counter-public associated with dominant discourses. Therefore, the contestation of the debates of the majority of public spheres results in the creation of more dominant oppositional discourses (Dahlberg, 2007). Marres, (2005) reflecting upon the debate of two American rationalist thinkers ‘Walter Lippmann’ and ‘John Dewey’, stated that with the evolution of advanced technologies, communication and public affairs have become quite complex. Lippmann and Dewey argued that the issue of democracy prevailing in technological societies is not merely because of the challenges of the quality, organisation and presentation of information. With this contention, Lippmann claimed that poor relationships between standing social groupings and institutions and the inability towards address the issue mentioned above effectively sparks public engagement in politics (Marres, 2005). Chapter 2 Examples, Discussion & Analysis Presentation of Examples and Case Study. Several instances or examples can be identified to relate with the theories and the statement “Digital media create new public spheres and increasingly alter our political life”. To illustrate, a huge crowd of more than thousands of people marched on the road in Istanbul in the year 2013 revealing their protest against the proposal of the government to raze Gezi Park. The protest was argued to be fuelled by digital media, which resulted in developing public sphere over the network and eventually erupting into huge mass events. Similar instance was also identified in Egypt when huge mass of protesters turn out at Tahrir Square in January 2011 who was later ascertained to use digital media to form groups for drawing the world’s attention. Notwithstanding, in December 2014, the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of Occident (PEGIDA) demonstrated protests to draw attention when thousands of protestors marched in streets demanding for more stringent regulations for people seeking asylum in Germany. The protest was reflected exclusively using SNS. Notably, it was reported that PEGIDA has extensively used digital media sites in order to draw the attention of people and organise protests against Islamic activists (Deutsche Welle, 2014). In order to measure and acquire a rich understanding regarding the impact of digital media on creating new public sphere and political life, a case study has been illustrated below. It would be worth to recall the recently occurred the student-led pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. It was ascertained that on September 28, 2014, in excess of 3000 students were reported to gather outside the government offices. The students protesting were made on the decision related to the appointment of Hong Kong’s top political role. During the protest, the role played by digital media such as social networking sites was extremely crucial. Notably, the protesters were identified to widely being engaged in messaging texts using digital tools such as WhatsApp to communicate and disseminate information. Moreover, it can also be found that images posted online were tagged or posted with certain phrases that further fuelled the protest to grow larger and intense (Tufekci, 2014). The social media such as Instagram was observed to be the most popularly used medium by the protestors to communicate and provide updates regarding the status in Hong Kong. "Umbrella man", which was used as the symbol for their protest, was shared on Twitter for more than thousands of times. Photos that were shared through this SNS showed protesters about making use of "hands up dont shoot" gesture in Hong Kong, which promoted increasing participation of people in the protest. Owing to the intensifying condition and the rapid spread of movement across the mass through the use of digital media, the Chinese government has blocked Weibo, one of the widely used social networking sites in China. The Chinese authorities ceased the picture-sharing services using Instagram. FireChat, which is a messaging app compatible with iOS and Android, permits users to send and receive messages "off-the-grid," was reported to receive in excess of 100,000 new accounts in less than 24 hours, while 800,000 registered chat sessions were also recorded in Hong Kong during the protest (Dastagir & Molina, 2014). It was claimed that blocking of social media would have avoided such political turmoil, which was later executed by the Chinese authorities. The people during the protest were using social media to express their views against and for and making conversation with others regarding the prevailing scenario in Hong Kong. Thus, based on the above examples and the case provided, it is evident that digital media create new public spheres and increasingly alter our political life. Unsurprisingly, the evidences provided are only the few instances that have been witnessed by the world in the recent past years but numerous examples underlying the same clearly justifies the statement. Discussion. The above discussion revealed that there has been significant revolution witnessed in the area of information communication and technologies. The advancements in this particular field have certainly offered people with numerous platforms to communicate and interact. The evolution of digital media, as a means of information communication and technology, has exerted profound impact on the lives of people across the globe. It is vital to mention that public opinion in the contemporary era is facilitated by numerous media such as newspapers, television talks and magazines. However, digital media is ascertained to be the most widely used channel of expressing opinion. Over the years, significant researches and studies have been conducted to explore the impact of digital media on the creation of public spheres and its role on altering the public life. Several scholars such as Habermas have attempted to draw the impact of mass media on public spheres as well as on political communication. Habermas, based on the normative idea, defined public sphere as a sovereign social space wherein private citizens participate in a rational-critical debate to deliberate issues of common interest. The evolution and the invention of digital media have profound impact on the societal life of the inhabitants, making greater improvement in the aspects of human cognition, corporation and communication. New advanced digital media plays an integral part in civic as well as political life. Social networking, texting and use of web media have gradually served as effective tools in making smooth flow of information concerning varied subject matters. Moreover, it can be apparently observed that the above stated tools have provided significant opportunities to the inhabitants in articulating and exchanging their prospective political ideas, voting, raising the need of funds, discussing the key and burning issues, protesting and most importantly working upon those issues in an efficient manner (Muniandy & Muniandy, 2013). It will be vital to note that the evolution of digital media has transformed the communication procedure of this modern day context with having broader consequences over the political engagement. Furthermore, online media helps to support and form structural interaction among the people and form an open environment of participation in conducting wider range of activities in distinct scenarios. This transformation has not only proved to be quite effective to a fewer group of peoples or society, rather it plays a pivotal role in establishing post-industrial societies. While discussing about the fact that digital media is increasingly altering the political life of the community members, it is to be affirmed that the digital media enabled the people to have greater access over different political information and also various tools to reveal political expression as well as preserve mobilisation by making broader political participation. With having the ubiquitous rise in the media industry, the cultural dimensions of the people have been changed, which ultimately affected their societal life and also political scenario by a certain level. Political activities with the advancement of digital media have reshaped the landscape of political life of the inhabitants. In this regard, it is reported that political and civic life all around the world has been considerably impacted the digital communications techniques, internet and social media involvement in the citizens’ life (Muniandy & Muniandy, 2013). In the current scenario, people are more likely to communicate and influence the activities of each other that are beyond their political or social structures. In this regard, blogs, varied sites of social networking including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube videos and podcasts are amongst the key tools that are actively used by the people to share opinions, which in turn, alter the political scenario of the community members at large. Thus, it can be inferred that the digital media tends to open the new avenues of communication and provide opportunities to get in connected with more and more people throughout political and social environment (Muniandy & Muniandy, 2013). In the present scenario, democracies availed by the media greatly relies on the ability of private citizens to engage in public debate and develop a forum of link-up for the creation of public sphere. In addition, it can be apparently recognised that online discourse will surge political participation and pave ways for democracy. In the recent past, several incidences have occurred, which predominately justify the statement that digital media create new public spheres and increasingly alter our political life. In this regard, an exploration of the issues such as the student-led pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, PEGIDA protest in Germany and protesters demonstrated at Tahrir Square in Egypt clearly justifies the role of digital media in the creation of public spheres and its impact on the political life. Alongside, digital media in several ways can be determined to transform the established conceptions regarding space and access significantly. At the same time, digital media has brought huge alteration in terms of activity and interaction. Notably, in the current context, receiving and disseminating political information or communication through the use of digital media has become fast, easy, convenient and most importantly affordable (Deutsche Welle, 2014; Dastagir & Molina, 2014;Tufekci, 2014). Correspondingly, digital media highly influences the political life especially the young generation in terms of raising voices against the conduct of any violence or any other event that disrupts the communities. Apart from this, the concept also tends to bridge the gap that existed in traditional and modern media commutation by raising the connectivity and involving the people with other authorised democratic institutions. Besides, internet and other modes of digital connectivity have offered opportunities to the public in the context of learning and comparing political interference with other nations (Kahne et al., 2014; Vaccari, 2013). Analysis. From the above discussion, it has been quite evident that the evolution of digital media impacts the political life of people from changing their perceptions in making high level of participation in decision-making procedure and discussing the key political issues. With every increasing user of digital media, people are highly participating in the political scenarios to make required changes in the policies and regimes with mutual engagement and acceptance. Similarly, digital media enables the youths to engage themselves into the political life through the design of varied participatory policies and addressing the key issues related to public concern. Alternatively, with the assistance of digital media, people involved themselves in the discussion of key political issues as well as practices by forming blogs or forums. Thus, it can be affirmed that digital media usage and the users of the same are continuously increasing at an alarming rate throughout the globe, resulting in changing the lifestyle of the people not only in socialising aspects but also in wider spectrum of political life. In this regard, social media and other digital applications have significantly provided the inhabitants with a golden opportunity to make suggestions and providing opinions on wide sphere topic of politics (Kahne et al., 2014; Vaccari, 2013). Nevertheless, the advancement in the field of digital media is duly regarded as a double-edged sword because of possessing varied advantages and also immense drawbacks. Advancement in the domain of digital media has certainly provided high access of information at any place and time through the use of computers, tablets, mobiles and other forms of digital media. Moreover, it brings negative influence over the political life when people utilises the power of media in lieu of creating unfair environment. Thus, the power of digital media is not only viewed as expressing the views or information, but also held to propagate these views in the global scenario with the elevated participation of different people (Kahne et al., 2014; Vaccari, 2013). Subsequently, based on the continuous improvement in the domain of digital media communication and its impacts over the activities perform by the inhabitants, the traditional forms of media communication have certainly proved to be ineffective in gaining high political interests amid the people. Thus, in the modern scenario, digital media has been shaping the new communication system in the dimension of political communication. Digital media communication is highly categorised with the use of interrelated digital media tools including satellite television, internet especially the use of social media and widespread internet enabled devices (Anduiza et al., 2012; Christensen, 2011). Conclusion It has been determined from the study, that progression in mass media especially through the use of internet has provided the benefits of accessing valuable information and exchanging ideas that significantly enhances various crucial aspects. These aspects entail political participation, democracy as well as civil societal conditions and development of social media over the public sphere. This co-existence in public sphere through the use of social media certainly facilitated huge figure of people to disseminate their respective ideas and provided the opportunity to speak out on social as well as political changes. Hence, the evolution of new sphere of communication advancement enables in promoting horizontal communication and fostering the political movement over the social issues by making better as well as effectual utilisation of digital communication. Thus, digital and social media assists in making appropriate exchange of information with gaining high level of attention from the community members residing within distinct societies. To conclude, it can be stated that the impact of digital media on the creation of new public spheres is clearly evident which has increasingly alter our political life. In addition, it would be vital to mention that in the later years, the impact of digital media such as SNS on the creation of public spheres and political life can take significant turnaround, which is quite difficult for a common public to imagine at present. References Anduiza, E., Perea, E. A., Jensen, M. J., & Jorba, L. (2012). 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