Social Media as A new Public Sphere

With the numerous advances that have came along with the 21st century, social media has been by far the most influential on the societal structures and has completely transformed socialization means. Social media has great societal influence from economics, politics and basic day to day socializing relationships. Social media has even gone as far as opening businesses on their social media platforms. Regarding communication, social media has made it easy for people to communicate and stay UpToDate on each other. Which brings us to how social media affected the modern-day public sphere. The word public sphere is of German origin and is an area of social life where people can come together and discuss anything freely, whether it be politics, ideology and even religion for instance. Habermas believed that “the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space”. Through the public sphere, members of the community were able to talk about the issue they are having and discuss political action to solve such issues.
In many ways the public sphere has become personalized and tailored to fit different political agendas not drafted y the public. Political organisations could guide the public sphere where they desire and there is no real space for public debate. One good example of how through the means of social media, the Arab spring revolutions came into being. Through the public sphere people would debate regarding political issues and eventually acted on the street. In many ways, the public sphere which exists on social media gave the people the opportunity to unify their voice through debate and stand up for political action against the corrupt regimes ruling their countries. The way media today personalizes political issues for people to follow has limited the people’s ability to form their own opinions regarding important issues. When people are not given any stimulation to debate and talk about what they hear in the news everyday, they won’t be motivated to form a specific opinion or position an any political position. In comparing the networked with the pre digital aged era public sphere one can see how people only followed personalized opinions and followed blind political decisions. The post digital era “networked” public sphere has shown its full potential in the recent years with more and more users subscribing to become part of the digital public sphere who has the freedom to discuss anything and form own positions and ideas in politics. According to Fuchs (2014), social media can be very helpful to the public sphere. Therefore, the networked public spheres better for the formation of own ideas and political stances which can be called into action. In many ways social media protects the public sphere and keeps a pen discourse between people, which opens the mind of people to various ideas and opinions which does not make the limited to one standpoint or ne idea.
Through personalization the balance of power has shifted from the hands of the people to the corrupt politicians. Whether it be democrats, republicans or even communists. When political views are personalized there is no space for people to come up with their own line of free thinking and ideas as well as political positions and act to provoke change. When people are only limited by either a democratic or republican view which are both personalized, they will never be able to think outside the boundaries that have been drawn for them. Social media has however, made it easier for the public sphere to debate and discuss ideas. For a long time, personalization has restricted and supressed the voice of the people and has distributed power unequally in any political system. During the Soviet Union, the soviet leaders abused the rule, capitalists nowadays have all the power and run the government of the united states which has a huge influence on the world. In the end, the political power is with the strong capitalists who have personalized and standardised politics so that no other political ideologies can come in their way. However social media raises awareness and creates an intimate public sphere. Although social media helps activate the public sphere when there is so much imbalance in the system, the fact that it is being regulated by bots and algorithms and have censored sometimes acts a means of supressing people’s voice in the public sphere. For it to be a public sphere any subject can be discussed or debated and should not be limited by neither bot nor algorithms.
The fact that people can broadcast opinions, live events and political ideologies opened us to numerous harmful influences (Halkort, 2019). These manipulative influences can personalize political opinion even on social media. Therefore, it is many country’s priority to take control of social media. Social media can be a very dangerous tool to spread mis information and fake news which can have a serious effect on the formation of ideas and positions on politics in people’s mind.
It is plausible to say that theses negative influences on social media hinder the democratic process of the public sphere. Social media public spheres can be affected by fake news which will tend to create an imbalance in the sphere. The personalization is following people on social media, because the power of the public sphere was seen during the Arab spring. Not to mention that the capitalist rulers of today do not want people to start forming their one ideas and decisions regarding politics. Therefore, is very important to win the minds and the hearts of the people, even on social media. In order to keep all the sheep in line.

References
Halkort, M., & Halkort, M. (2019, April 04). Does the personalization of publics strengthen or undermine democratic participation and public… Retrieved from https://medium.com/jsc-224-class-blog/does-the-personalization-of-publics-strengthen-or-undermine-democratic-participation-and-public-1081e7f42ca1
Marshall, (2018). “Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere”. Media Studies.ca.
Fuchs. (n.d.). Social Media and the Public Sphere. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.31269/triplec.v12i1.552