Thursday 6 September 2012

Does Public Sphere = Social Network?


Habermas's Public Sphere deals with the concept of sharing and communicating ideas and information in a critical manner to create an opinion. Although Habermas's concept is rather limiting with it generally relating to a physical location and focusing on the higher strata’s of society (Habermas:1989). The most obvious example of the Public Sphere in relation to Globalisation is Facebook and other social media sites. However, as evident by my blogs focus I believe film and video have their place.

YouTube, a massive video sharing website, is the crossroads between film and social media. People can upload videos of things they like or post blogs to espouse their beliefs. Although these are just newer forms of communication they are sometimes more limited then direct physical contact. In particular, Facebook generally depends on ‘Friending’ the person before they are able to communicate ideological concepts. Whereas YouTube and Film can communicate a direct message to the viewer with out a restriction except the choice to view.

Films can inform, educate and create an emotional connection to a person or event. For example the Facebook focused ‘Social Network’ portrayed a semi-factual history of its creation but allowed user to see the reality of the commonly used media site.

Films can show historical events that are major turning points throughout cultural history.

                           ‘Milk’ portrays the gay rights movement in the USA

‘Invictus’ shows the 1994 Rugby World Cup that literally united South Africa after years of civil unrest

Habermas, J. (1989) The structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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