This paper examines the consequences of the digitalization of the public sphere and how it impacts on civil society organization and mobilization. The public sphere is here defined as the institutional communicative spaces that facilitate public discussion and the formation of public opinion.
The paper consists of two parts. In the first part we develop the concept of the digitalized public sphere theoretically. The emergence of Web 2.0 and social media is a key element in the process of digitalization of the public sphere. Social media are developing as part of a “networked information economy” (Benkler, 2006). This networked information economy is based on decentralized and relatively cheap personal computers interconnected through the Internet. In contrast to the mass-media production of information of the earlier age, which required high levels of capital concentration, networked media entail decentralization and democratization of the means of production and distribution of information, knowledge and culture. The networked information economy improves the capacities of individuals to produce information themselves and to cooperate with others in loose non-hierarchical networked communities.
The affordances inherent to social media may therefore shape new ways of interacting in public, and hence new public spheres. In particular we hypothesize that social media change the boundaries between public and private matters. Weintraub (1997:4-5) distinguishes “two fundamental, and analytically quite distinct, kinds of imagery in terms of which “private” can be contrasted with “public: (i) What is hidden or withdrawn versus what is open, revealed or accessible. (ii) What is individual, or pertains only to an individual, versus what is collective, or affects the interests of a collectivity of individuals”. Social media provoke a displacement and a blurring of the boundaries between individual and collective interest and between what is visible and what is hidden in the public sphere. In modern, western societies, organized civil society and mass media have constituted dominant channels for the expression of collective will. As a consequence of the development of social media, new online and offline collectivities may be mobilized outside of established civil society organizations and give voice to alternative demands. Personal/private initiatives and forms of expression may gain massive support. The displacement of public and private may then have an impact i) on the processes through which collectivities are formed and mobilized in the public sphere and ii) the relative roles of formalized organizations and informal online and offline networks in expressing voice in the public sphere.
The second part of the paper examines empirically whether social media do contribute to mobilizing new types of civic collectivities outside established civil society organizations, and the eventual consequences of this development to the public roles of these organizations. The analysis is based on individual level data on social media use and civic participation online and offline, which are representative of Norwegian Internet users (N=5737). These data are supplemented by organizational data, consisting of case-studies of civil society organizations, their social media use, and the consequences in terms of relations to members and societal roles.
Three questions are addressed:
- To what extent do social media transform the conditions for individual civic mobilization?
- To what extent do social media have a positive (or negative) effect on individuals’ participation in civil society organizations?
- Which opportunities and challenges for participation in the public sphere face civil society organizations as a consequence of the rise of social media?
Summing up these empirical analyses the paper concludes with an assessment of the meaning and impact of the digitalization of the public for organized civil society, and with a discussion of the implications of these developments for future research on the public.
