COMM 2500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Ideal Speech Situation, John Stuart Mill, Frankfurt School
Document Summary
Mills: public sphere = the marketplace of ideas, the space where individuals exert formal and informal control, society = aggregation of equal individuals, of active citizens. John stuart mill: english philosopher and economist, raised by father -- james mill -- to be a strict utilitarian, mill"s childhood rigid -- and he suffered a nervous breakdown at 21. Feudal publicness: one-sided (the monarch) and demonstrative, absolute power of the monarch. Bourgeois public sphere: shopkeepers, traders, merchants, craftsmen, scholars, etc. Multiple public spheres: neglects other emancipatory movements besides the bourgeoisie such as the proletariate (negt & kluge, habermas privileges one specific public sphere over others, but there are multiple overlapping and contradicting public spheres or public spericules" (gitlin) Ideal speech conditions online: the hyper-capitalist nature of the internet, lack of reflexivity in online discussions (dahlberg, 2001) inability to deal with difference/diversity leading to homophily or opinion reinforcement (wilhelm, 2000; Davies, 1999: anonymity invites rude behaviour, flaming, trolling (cammaerts and van audenhove,