twitter and the public sphere

Twitter and the public sphereJoost Knaap

joost@joostknaap.nl

Public sphereHabermas:A democratic political culture where people can, outside state’s supervision, have critical debates and can reason freely

Succes depends onEqualityCan everyone access it?Does everyone have a vote?Effective deliberation and discussion

(‘procedures of open discussion aimed at achieving rationality motivated consensus’, Dahlgren, 2006)

CritiqueNot very democratic at all….

Exclusion of everyone but white bourgeois males (Garnham, 1992)

But….The internet!

Twitter‘Real-time information network’Communication through ‘tweets’ (140

characters)Microblog, ‘SMS of the internet’

Global: rank 9 (Alexa)US: rank 10 (Quantcast)/

rank 7 (Alexa)

Sources: alexa.com / quantcast.com

If only 100 people were on twitter

Source: http://www.sysomos.com/ (Picture from: Visualized, the Information Atlas (not yet published), www.visualizedthebook.com)

Twitter study (1)

Source: http://www.pearanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf

Twitter study (2)

Source: http://www.pearanalytics.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Twitter-Study-August-2009.pdf

So, ís twitter the ideal place to have critical debate and discussion? (1)

Equality +Accesibility +/-Everyone has a voice +Limited space (140 characters) -

So, ís twitter the ideal place to have critical debate and discussion? (2)Possible to interact (‘@’) +Most topics not serious (‘pointless blabber’) -People do not always comment on each other

-Really outside state supervision? -

Example: miljoenennota (budget memorandum)

Traditional media follow

Possibilities to interact

ButOnly a minority uses twitter to discuss the

newsMostly short statements, not

a lot of reactions, no real interaction

A lot of politiciansNot always serious

ConclusionTwitter has elements of a public sphereBut, 140 characters are too short for effective

deliberation and discussionMost of tweets not seriousMost twitter users do not interact

In my opinion Twitter is not a public sphere

The end Feel free to ask questions if you have any!