Internet [plus] Public Sphere [equal] Online Public Sphere?
During the past decade, the discussion discuss about “public sphere”, a term first
regarding the so-called information society
has heightened as the development and
integration of ICTs into different aspects of
social world also increase. The term
information society itself can have
different formulations and definitions,
depending on the area and perspective
used to define it.
Although different scholars address
information society differently, they all
agreed that information holds a special
and significant role in our present society.
ICTs – and internet, as the terms will be
used interchangeably in this review – are
also seen as a medium to enhance
democracy.
Often regarded as a free realm in which all
sorts of information can be sent and
retrieved, internet is seen to provide a
basis for democratic process in the
information society. Or, to state it
differently, it serves as a new platform for
the public sphere.
This literature review will discuss the
concept of information society in relation
with the “virtual public sphere” maintained
through the internet. Starting from Frank
Webster’s Theories of Information Society,
I will highlight some of the different
definitions of information society.
Complemented with the analysis from
John Feather’s work, The Information
Society – A Study of Continuity and
Change, I will compare the two accounts
of information society and present the
similar theme that echoes through both
publications, namely the “double-sided”
character of information society. This
“double-sided”ness can also be related to
the Manuel Castells’ term “network
society”, the basic characteristic of which
is a binary logic of inclusion/exclusion.
And as the internet is seen as a medium
to enhance democracy, it is rather fitting to
A literature review by Nena Brodjonegoro
coined by Jürgen Habermas, and how it is
conducted in the information society as a
“virtual public sphere”.
The four mentioned scholars will be the
core literatures in this review, plus an
additional article by Zizi Papacharissi. The
reason to choose those literatures is
because they are among the key people in
each area of research.
Webster’s account of information society
is comprehensive in terms of scope of
area and Feather’s study of information
society is a historical account, spanning
from the beginning of writing up to the
emergence of e-democracy.
Castells’ work is undoubtedly the most
influential writings on the subject of
information in our contemporary society,
and for this review his work The Internet
Galaxy will be the main subject of
discussion.
As for Habermas, despite many critiques
and opponents, his term “public sphere” is
very valuable in seeing how information
plays a central role in our society and in
achieving the ideal of democracy. An
‘internetization’ of Habermas’ notion of
public sphere, namely the virtual public
sphere, is explored thoroughly in
Papacharissi’s article, which questioned
the possibility of a virtual public sphere.
This review will be structured as follows:
firstly I will briefly highlight the different
conceptions regarding information society
based on Webster’s and Feather’s
accounts. I will simultaneously compare
the ideas from both scholars and further
discuss the common queries about
information and information society. The
notion of information society will also be
related and compared with that of network
society from Castells. On the second part I
will discuss about the public sphere in the
information society and how both are
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closely related. The last part will talk more
thoroughly about the virtual public sphere,
particularly the critiques and the
challenges of establishing one.
Information Society: What Is It?
Despite the many discussions regarding
information society, the definition of
“information society” itself is still unclear –
each area regards information differently,
hence producing a different definition of
information society. Frank Webster (2006)
provided a comprehensive account on the
matter and distinguish five definitions of
information society on the area of
technological, economic, occupational,
spatial and cultural, each of which need
not to be mutually exclusive.
Besides these definitions, Webster
provides a thorough discussion about
various theories/school of thought related
to information society in different aspects
of social world, each by the key
proponents in the area.
The discussion included theory of post-
industrial society by Daniel Bell; network
society by Manuel Castells; information
and the market by Herbert Schiller;
information and democracy by Jürgen
Habermas; information, reflexivity and
surveillance by Anthony Giddens;
information and postmodernity by Jean
Baudrillard, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and
Mark Poster. Webster argued that the
different explanations about the role of
information in the society can be
distinguished into two main ideas: those
which suggested that a new kind of
society has emerged from the old one and
those who suggested that the present
society is one that continues from the old
one.
On the former idea are theorists of post-
industrialism such as Bell, postmodernism
such as Baudrillard, and the informational
mode of development (Manuel Castells);
A literature review by Nena Brodjonegoro
and on the latter are theorists of neo-
Marxism such as Schiller, reflexive
modernization such as Giddens, and
public sphere such as Habermas.
The similar view is shared by Feather
(2004), though he takes it to a different
understanding. He argues that the
information-dependent society combines
both profound change and fundamental
continuity and can only be understood in
context (p. xiii). The context itself is partly
historical, partly economic, and partly
political, and therefore the discussion
regarding information society is very vast.
In each phase of development of
communication and information in the
society, both the continuity and changes
are understandable if we see it in context.
Going through both literatures, there are
one common query regarding the notion of
information society that we are said to be
living in now. Why does information have
such central position in our society now
that we even call our society an
“information society”? Hasn’t in always
been that way even since the ancient
Egypt – that information plays an
important role in the society?
As mentioned above, information has
always been central in our society. But it
seems that we value information even
more in our present society, and this is
due mostly to the development of ICTs.
Feather suggested several reasons for
this, and they can be divided into three
areas: the value of information, the
technical capacity of ICTs, and the nature
of interactivity of the internet.
And as we moved toward the present,
information is increasingly seen, in some
respects, as being too valuable to be
public (Feather, 2004, p. xvi), thus
information is valorized. This value of
information is then intensified by the
emergence of market economy and the
development of ICTs which enables us to
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store, process and transmit information. In
our (post)industrial society now, almost all
basic transactions of our everyday life is
conducted through the help of ICTs and
we cannot imagine how our life would be
without it.
The government relies heavily on the
information/data base on all aspects of its
governance, and so does business and
corporation. Even the private, daily lives of
the individuals increasingly rely on the
information sent and retrieved from the
internet.
The vast spread of and dependence to
ICT and internet, brings not only
advantage but also some problems,
particularly those related to inclusion and
the digital divide. This is due to the basic
logic of ICTs and internet: network which I
will discuss more in the next section.
The technical capability of the computer
and internet has also made them “the
force behind changes far greater than
those wrought by any other invention of an
inventive century” (Feather, 2004, p. xii).
They are able to simulate skills and
attributes that we once thought were
unique to human, namely memory, logic,
and communication. This capability brings
not only hope but also fear, as the
computer seemingly become more
‘powerful’ than us, the creator.
The computer also demanded and
facilitated the convergence of
technologies (particularly with the
internet), which allows us to combine
computing with telecommunications and
the digitization of text and image to permit
almost instantaneous worldwide
transmission of data (Feather, 2004) p.
xv), as long as the computers are
connected in the massive network of
internet.
This capacity for interactivity with other
computers places their users in a uniquely
A literature review by Nena Brodjonegoro
powerful position, because the information
are available and retrievable for them. The
form, time and place of output can be
largely determined by the convenience of
the user rather than that of the provider
(Feather, 2004, p. 208-9).
The emergence of new platform of the
internet such as Web 2.0 further advances
this interactivity as the users can now
enjoy features such as content-on-
demand and video streaming. This
interactivity also differentiates computers
fundamentally from all previous
mechanisms for the storage and retrieval
of information (Feather, 2004).
Besides the three ideas from Feather,
another line of thought suggested that the
distinguishing feature of the information
society is the large quantity of information
available (Webster, 2006). This is
supported by emergence of new media
and the consistent presence of
conventional media, such as TV and
newspaper, despite the availability of new
media.
The abundance of information is not
necessarily a good thing, indicated by the
term “information overload”. Besides that,
the increase in quantity of information
available does not mean that the quality
also increases. Quite the contrary, the
high quantity of information is likely the
result of manipulation – information that is
generated to entertain or divert,
camouflage, or to deceive the public, for
political or market interest. This view is
supported by authors such as Schiller and
Habermas.
From the discussion above, we can see
that information society is very hard to
define, despite its seemingly self-
explanatory term. What constitutes as
information may be agreed upon, but the
outcome of information that defines the
information society is rather debatable as
information carries always two-sides
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consequences: Is the information society
liberating or limiting? Is the information
society focuses on quantity or quality of
the information? Is the information
available everywhere or nowhere?
Similar problem can also be found in the
discussion regarding network society. Is a
network enabling or limiting? Is it effective
or complicated? Is it strong or vulnerable?
To better understand the similarity, it is
necessary to review the notion of network
society.
Network society is a society “whose social
structure is made of networks powered by
microelectronics-based information and
communication technologies” (Castells,
2004). Social structure includes structural
arrangements of humans related to
production, consumption, reproduction,
experience and power – all of which
articulated in meaningful communication
coded by culture; while a network is a set
of interconnected nodes (Castells, 2004).
We are now experiencing a transformation
towards ‘information age’, whose main
feature is the spread of networks between
individuals, organizations, and nations, as
they become a node in the network. In this
network society, there is no center – just
nodes; and all nodes can communicate
with other nodes in the network. A network
works in binary logic of
inclusion/exclusion.
These are the basic logic of the internet,
which serve as its main advantage (and
disadvantage). Because all nodes
interconnect with each other, the network
can diffuse information quickly to all
nodes, and information can be accessed
from all nodes. But this means that the
network is vulnerable to threat, and that a
defect in a node can affect the whole
network. And since it operates based on
inclusion/exclusion, all information in the
network can only be accessible from
nodes that are in the network. Those
A literature review by Nena Brodjonegoro
outside the network cannot communicate
with each other. And this is where internet
plays the most significant role in the
network society: it connects all the
networks together.
Being the largest network, internet
provides abundance of information and
became the place where all organizations,
parties, and governments post their
information. Internet becomes the new
public sphere. The term e-democracy and
e-governance (re)emerged in the past 10-
15 years as a result of various effort to
“digitalize” both democracy and
governance – firstly to improve citizen-
local authority contact, delivery of services
and, in the longer term to encourage
citizen participation in public affairs
(Tsagarousianou, 1998).
Information Society and
Democracy: The Public Sphere
When talking about information society in
relation with democracy, I think that there
is no better way to start than Habermas’
concept of public sphere. What he means
with public sphere is an arena, free from
both government authority and market
pressures, to which all members of society
can enter to discuss and debate about
various topic.
Since the public sphere is free from
political and economical interests, the
discussion and debate is not manipulated
and is rational. The notion of public sphere
places information in its center, thus the
notion of public sphere is also crucial in
the discourse of democracy.
The underlying assumption is that
democracy can be achieved if information
is provided and accessible by all members
of society, because then they can make
informed decision in the process of
democracy. The role of the media is also
significant as the provider of information
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and freedom of press is often seen as the
signifier of democracy (Feather, 2004).
And as internet increasingly becomes
incorporated in the information society as
a source of information, and because of its
(virtual) freedom, internet is viewed to be
the promoter of democracy (Søraker,
2008; Bryan, Tsagarousianou and
Tambini, 1998). Therefore, many scholars
often regards internet as the new platform
for public sphere, which may bring back
the “bourgeois public sphere” of the 18th
and 19th century Germany and Britain
before it declined in the 20th century.
There are in principles two main features
of Habermas’ ideal public sphere, and
these are: 1) independent from
government and the pressure of the
market; and 2) accessible to every
member of the society.
These features are not without
preconditions. The public can be
independent from government and
pressure of the market because there are
consequent division of society and the
state and because they are ‘propertied
people’ (Gestrich, 2006). They need not to
worry about fulfilling their and their family’s
daily needs, and because society and
state are divided they do not have to fear
about censorship and/or political
prosecution for their critical debate and
discussion.
Regarding the access to the public
sphere, although it seems accessible to all
member of society, there is a ‘filter’ to
enter it: literacy. Habermas talked about
the ‘World of Letter” (Habermas, 1962,
1989), and to be able to participate in the
rational debate one had to be literate – in
reading and/or writing. This issue of
accessibility is one of the main critiques
toward Habermas (Gestrich, 2006;
Papacharissi, 2002), and one of the main
problems of the proliferation of internet.
A literature review by Nena Brodjonegoro
A discussion about public sphere and the
internet is especially heightening with
regard to the European Union, as scholars
talk about the European Public Sphere
(Baisnee, 2007; Kaitatzi-Whitlock, 2007)
relating with the mass media and internet
as well. Kaitatzi-Whitlock even suggested
that the television media, “which in
synergy with new media such as the
Internet becomes interactive, is the best
instrument to fill these gaps of the still
missing common pan-European public
space” (p. 685). The interactivity, along
with the underlying logic and the size of
network (i.e. the inclusion of all connected
nodes), of the internet makes it a
promising platform for achieving the ideal
public sphere.
The Virtual Public Sphere:
Critiques and Challenges
Despite its critiques regarding the
historical account of the ‘bourgeois public
sphere’ and the preconditions of the public
sphere, the notion itself is proven to be
intriguing and significant since it was first
coined in 1962. Scholars continued to
discuss and critique his work in various
area even until now (Gestrich, 2006;
Papacharissi, 2002), and the term public
sphere nevertheless provides a useful
starting point to discuss democracy in
relation with media – including the
internet.
In the information age, the ‘virtual public
sphere’ on the internet platform has some
characteristic resemblance with the public
sphere in the 18th and 19th century, and
only differs in the contextual accounts.
Both provides a platform to conduct
discussions and debates that is accessible
to virtually all members of the society,
both are relatively free from state
intervention and commercial interests, and
both disregard status of the individuals
who are willing to enter the public sphere.
These characteristics are all debatable, as
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the first section of Papacharissi (2002)
outlined. The public sphere never
provided equal access to all members of
society as it excludes women and non-
propertied public realm, and that
government which pays attention to all
diverse voices or the public sphere has
never existed (Fraser, 1992, in
Papacharissi, 2002), and Lyotard (1984, in
Papacharissi, 2002) argued that anarchy,
individuality, and disagreement, and not
rational accord, lead to democratic
emancipation.
As Papacharissi noted (2002), the main
argument regarding “virtual public sphere”
is the access to it. Similar to the
abovementioned critique about access to
public sphere, the virtual public sphere is
viewed to not be accessible for all
members of society. Despite the
seemingly global reach of internet, there is
still a problem with access to the internet
in some societies and some parts of
societies, resulting in the division between
the haves and the have-nots. For the
haves, internet serves as a tool for
participating in the virtual public sphere
and as for the have-nots, they are
excluded from the discussion at all since
they are not in the network.
Another argument that follows this
argument is that the inclusion in the
network of virtual public sphere does not
necessarily mean increased political
activity nor enlighten political debate
(Papacharissi, 2002). Increase in political
activity does not guarantee that the
increase is one towards the betterment of
the democratic process, as the freedom of
expression includes expressing the
negative expression as well. What is for
sure is that internet with its interactivity
provides various alternatives for political
expression and to be politically involved.
One can publish blog, join a forum, post a
comment on a bulletin board, and create a
website. Compared to the 18th century
public sphere, the number of places to
A literature review by Nena Brodjonegoro
conduct discussions in the virtual public
sphere is virtually limitless. And so is the
number of information available.
As all nodes in the network can transmit
information to all other nodes, information
in the virtual public sphere comes from all
participants of the virtual public sphere:
government, political party, individuals,
politicians, economists, academia, and
others. And rather different from the 18th
century public sphere in which the
participants of the discussion had no
private interests, in the virtual public
sphere all participants have their interests.
Thus the information that is available
could be biased and/or manipulated in
order to achieve its own end
(Papacharissi, 2002; Webster, 2006). This
can be seen in the time before an election,
when politicians can influence its voters
only through smart use of the internet. In
this sense, internet platform does not
create new practices, but rather
preserving old practices that have long
been shaping the democratic process.
The virtual public sphere is also argued to
be fragmentizing instead of unifying. The
online political discussion provides a place
for diversity and rational debates, but
there is doubt about whether different
groups could get along on the discussion
(Papacharissi, 2002). The free realm of
internet also enables individuals to choose
special interest groups that suit her/him,
as a result and resulting the internet more
fragmented. In this sense the number of
people that the information (or opinion)
reach can be more diverse, but also
smaller (p. 17). This small online
discussion group is perhaps similar to
Habermas’ public sphere of coffee houses
and salons, but it also make the forming of
public opinion through virtual public
sphere rather hard if one aims for a
massive one.
One last point that Papacharissi made in
her article is that the virtual public sphere
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is the commercial interest surrounding the
virtual public sphere. According to Carey
(1995, in Papacharissi, 2002), the virtual
public sphere is susceptible to the same
force that originally transformed public
sphere.
The spread of capitalism which allowed
the emergence of public sphere in the 18th
century turned to undermine it in the late
20th and early 21st century. The business’
emphasis on advertising and revenue also
infiltrate internet because it is seen as a
cheap and massive media to advertise
and run business on. Therefore, some
scholars argued that the internet will
submit to the ‘dominant pattern of
capitalism’ and is more likely to ‘adapt to
the existing political culture rather than
create a new one’ (McChesney, 1995, in
Papacharissi, 2002).
This statement illustrates the biggest
challenge of virtual public sphere: whether
it would provide a different result than
conventional offline public and/or political
discussion, or it would only recreate the
same pattern and result in the virtual
world. Although the internet platform
demands a different mode of discussion
and relationship, but it is still part of our
social world. Hence it retains certain
pattern of power relations – between
individuals, between economic, political,
cultural interest – which may not
encourage the establishment of an ideal
public sphere. To paraphrase
Papacharissi, internet does provide a new
public space, but it doesn’t necessarily
constitute public sphere.
continuity of the information society should
not be viewed as a dichotomy, but rather
as a contextual attribute which are
constantly present. Information society will
always be loaded with contradictory
features accompanying each other:
enabling/limiting, including/excluding,
empowering/marginalizing,
democracy/diversity, overload/information,
equality/elitism, and many more (Calcutt,
1999).
Therefore, what defines both information
society and the public sphere is not the
significant features of each, but rather
what we do with it and how we can best
utilize and balance those contradictory
features. Internet, with all its distinguished
capability and quality, will not change the
‘face’ of public sphere (or any other
‘sphere’) unless we, as the stakeholders,
want it to.
Internet is after all just a technological
device and its presence alone cannot
solve the problem of our society, be it
democracy, poverty, or equality. Just like
any other tool, what matters and what
determines the result of the internet is
what we do with it and how we cope with
its contradictory contextual attitude.

In this perspective, the recurring theme of

change and continuity can again be seen.
Although internet brings about something
new to the society, but it is also ‘only’ a
development of something that has
existed before. To a certain extent, the
new features will always reflect the
existing characteristics. Thus, as Feather
suggested, the question of change and

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Internet [plus] Public Sphere [equal] Online Public Sphere?

- edited by Nick Crossley, Roberts

Bibliography John and Michael John

Baisnee, Olivier (2007) ‘The European
Public Sphere Does Not Exist (At
Least It’s Worth Wondering…)’,
European Journal of
Communication, Dec2007, Vol. 22
Issue 4, p493-503.
Castells, Manuel (2004) ‘Informationalism,
Networks, and The Network
Society: A Theoretical Blueprint’,
in Castells, Manuel (ed) The
Network Society: A Cross-cultural
Perspective, Northampton, MA:
Edward Elgar
Papacharissi, Zizi (2002) ‘The Virtual
Sphere: The Internet as A Public
Sphere’, New Media Society, 4;
p9-27
Søraker, Johnny Hartz (2008) 'Global
Freedom of Expression Within
Nontextual Frameworks', The
Information Society, Vol. 24 Issue
1, p40–46.
Webster, Frank (2006) Theories of
Information Society Third Edition,
London and New York: Routledge

Castells, Manuel (2001), The Internet

Galaxy - Reflections on the
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Gestrich, Andreas (2006) ‘The Public

Sphere and the Habermas
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Habermas, Jürgen (1989 [1962]) The

Structural Transformation of the
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Huspek, Michael (2007) ‘Habermas and

Oppositional Public Spheres: A
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p821–843.

Kaitatzi-Whitlock, Sophia (2007) 'The

Missing European Public Sphere
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McKee, Alan (2006) After Habermas. New

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