A Private Sphere (PDF)

Online technologies excite the public imagination with
narratives of democratization. The Internet is a political medium,
borne of democracy, but is it democratizing?

Late modern democracies are characterized by civic apathy,
public skepticism, disillusionment with politics, and general
disinterest in conventional political process. And yet, public
interest in blogging, online news, net-based activism,
collaborative news filtering, and online networking reveal an
electorate that is not disinterested, but rather, fatigued with
political conventions of the mainstream.

This book examines how online digital media shape and are shaped
by contemporary democracies, by addressing the following
issues:

* How do online technologies remake how we function as citizens
in contemporary democracies?

* What happens to our understanding of public and private as
digitalized democracies converge technologies, spaces and
practices?

* How do citizens of today understand and practice their civic
responsibilities, and how do they compare to citizens of the
past?

* How do discourses of globalization, commercialization and
convergence inform audience/producer, citizen/consumer,
personal/political, public/private roles individuals must take
on?

* Are resulting political behaviors atomized or collective?

* Is there a public sphere anymore, and if not, what model of
civic engagement expresses current tendencies and tensions
best?

Students and scholars of media studies, political science, and
critical theory will find this to be a fresh engagement with some
of the most important questions facing democracies today.