The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964) Jürgen Habermas; Sara Lennox; Frank Lennox. New German Critique, No. 3. (Autumn, 1974), pp. 49-55. Stable URL: https://www.konstfack.se/PageFiles/24768/habermas-1964-the-public-sphere.pdf
- Feels like it's just giving historical context into why there didn't use to be a true public sphere.
- Either I didn't understand this piece, or I just truly don't have that many remarks about it.
Mediating Consent. Renee DiResta, RibbonFarm, December 2019
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2019/12/17/mediating-consent/
- The naive assumption of tech companies is that the only things that they're moderating are truth and lies, but in reality it's a lot less black and white.
- "The most prominent example at the moment is the ongoing impeachment hearing: despite listening to identical witness testimony each day, media reports vary wildly along partisan (rather than religious) lines."
- Today I learned what the Estates were. My new colloquial definition is that Estates refers to the classes in people in society who wield power and influence. The Fourth Estate is the media, and according to this piece, the Fifth Estate is social media? Social media platforms? Something like that.
- A point that I disagree with, or perhaps the piece just didn't go into in depth -- the piece seems to imply that democracy needs consensus. I think that this is true for some things, like picking a president, but for most decisions, pretending like everyone agrees is a great way to alienate the losing side. Here's a tweet that I felt like was insightful: "The Framers divided Congress against itself (bicameralism) because disunity is good for democracy." https://twitter.com/BobPersis/status/1356775771793154055
- Update: oops I didn't read this part: " The tension itself is not new — the history of media is in part the history of managing it — but the severity with which it is manifesting today, is." The author does address it.
- Extra notes from class:
- "Tristan Harris and the Center for Humane Technology, and Tobias Rose Stockwell, currently at NYU, have each made tangible suggestions toward rethinking specific design choices and incentive structures that push users into malign communities or warp them into perpetually outraged, aggrieved trolls."
Misc
- A tweet that I thought was interesting -- this person defines what values means, and says that "it's almost impossible to respect someone who doesn't share your few real values." Could be relevant to public spaces, since putting people who don't have respect together can result in unproductive conversations.
- https://twitter.com/webdevMason/status/1356327319204323332