IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/264182.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Media and the Digital Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Author

Listed:
  • Staab, Philipp
  • Thiel, Thorsten

Abstract

This article explores the question of how to understand social media following the Habermasian theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere. We argue for a return to political-economic fundamentals as the basis for analysing the public sphere and seek to establish a characteristic connection between digital-behavioural control and singularised audiences in the context of proprietary markets. In the digital constellation, it is less a matter of immobilising the citizen as a consumer but rather of their political activation – albeit in conditions under which commercial interests have primacy: privatisation without privatism.

Suggested Citation

  • Staab, Philipp & Thiel, Thorsten, 2022. "Social Media and the Digital Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 39(4), pages 129-143.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:264182
    DOI: 10.1177/02632764221103527
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/264182/1/Full-text-article-Staab-et-al-Social-media-and.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/02632764221103527?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hirschman, Albert O, 1982. "Rival Interpretations of Market Society: Civilizing, Destructive, or Feeble?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(4), pages 1463-1484, December.
    2. Hofmann, Jeanette, 2019. "Mediated democracy – Linking digital technology to political agency," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(2), pages 1-18.
    3. Ulbricht, Lena, 2020. "Scraping the demos. Digitalization, web scraping and the democratic project," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 426-442.
    4. Bennett, Colin J. & Lyon, David, 2019. "Data-driven elections: implications and challenges for democratic societies," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 8(4), pages 1-16.
    5. Elder-Vass,Dave, 2016. "Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781316509388, November.
    6. Elder-Vass,Dave, 2016. "Profit and Gift in the Digital Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107146143, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. liu, Zhizhong & Ju, Bin, 2023. "Network infrastructure construction and heterogeneous enterprise innovation quasi-natural experiment based on “Broadband China”," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    2. Savage, Mike & Vaughan, Michael, 2024. "Durability in inequality discourse in the UK public sphere, 2008-2023," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121597, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Staab, Philipp & Thiel, Thorsten, 2021. "Privatisierung ohne Privatismus. Soziale Medien im digitalen Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit [Privatization without Privatism. Social Media and the Digital Transformation of the Public Sphere]," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 0, pages 277-297.
    2. Berg, Sebastian & Hofmann, Jeanette, 2021. "Digital democracy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(4), pages 1-23.
    3. Andrew Cumbers & Robert McMaster & Susana Cabaço & Michael J White, 2020. "Reconfiguring Economic Democracy: Generating New Forms of Collective Agency, Individual Economic Freedom and Public Participation," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 34(4), pages 678-695, August.
    4. Berg, Sebastian & König, Tim & Koster, Ann-Kathrin, 2020. "Political Opinion Formation as Epistemic Practice: The Hashtag Assemblage of #metwo," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 8(4), pages 84-95.
    5. Sebastian Berg & Tim König & Ann-Kathrin Koster, 2020. "Political Opinion Formation as Epistemic Practice: The Hashtag Assemblage of #metwo," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(4), pages 84-95.
    6. Røpke, Inge, 2020. "Econ 101—In need of a sustainability transition," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    7. Berg, Sebastian & Hofmann, Jeanette, 2021. "Digital democracy," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 10(4), pages 1-23.
    8. Dolata, Ulrich, 2020. "Internet – Plattformen – Regulierung: Koordination von Märkten und Kuratierung von Sozialität," Research Contributions to Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies, SOI Discussion Papers 2020-01, University of Stuttgart, Institute for Social Sciences, Department of Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies.
    9. Dolata, Ulrich, 2020. "Internet – Platforms – Regulation: Coordination of Markets and Curation of Sociality," Research Contributions to Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies, SOI Discussion Papers 2020-02, University of Stuttgart, Institute for Social Sciences, Department of Organizational Sociology and Innovation Studies.
    10. Burnes, Bernard & Choi, Hwanho, 2021. "Hybrid economy in the digital age: The case of the independent music community in Korea," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    11. James Swaney, 1990. "The environmental imperative of socio-economics," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 45-58, September.
    12. Niclas Berggren & Therese Nilsson, 2013. "Does Economic Freedom Foster Tolerance?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 177-207, May.
    13. David George, 2006. "Social class and social identity," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(4), pages 429-445.
    14. Palsson, Gisli, 1998. "The virtual aquarium: Commodity fiction and cod fishing," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2-3), pages 275-288, February.
    15. McCabe, Joshua T., 2012. "What can sociology teach us about the ideational origins of modernity? Comments on McCloskey's Bourgeois Dignity," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 772-775.
    16. Rick Wicks, 2009. "A model of dynamic balance among the three spheres of society – markets, governments, and communities," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(5), pages 535-565, April.
    17. Beck, Ulrik & Bjerge, Benedikte, 2017. "Pro-poor Land Transfers and the Importance of Land Abundance and Ethnicity in The Gambia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 122-140.
    18. Berggren, Niclas & Nilsson, Therese, 2016. "Tolerance in the United States: Does economic freedom transform racial, religious, political and sexual attitudes?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 53-70.
    19. Rick Wicks, 2012. "Assumption Without Representation: The Unacknowledged Abstraction from Communities and Social Goods," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 57(1), pages 78-95, May.
    20. Andreas Ziegler & Giorgia Romagnoli & Theo Offerman, 2020. "Morals in multi-unit markets," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 20-072/I, Tinbergen Institute, revised 10 Feb 2021.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:264182. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.