Staying with the Secret: The Public Sphere in Platform Society

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Investigating the structural transformation of the public sphere should reckon with the secret and its modes of organization. The expansion of secrecy effected by the infrastructures, platforms, and applications of media technology is constitutive for the emergence and transformation of ‘digital publics’. Offering a rereading of Habermas’s Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere that is attuned to the organizational principle of secrecy, this paper discusses current notions of mediated publics in juxtaposition with the redoubling of media-technological and organizational secrecy at work in platform society. How are illegibility, opacity and unavailability organized? Instead of assuming accountability, publicity and transparency as epistemological a priori, investigating the transformation of the public sphere would benefit from adopting epistemes of secrecy and opacity.

Original languageEnglish
JournalTheory, Culture & Society
Volume39
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)111-127
Number of pages17
ISSN0263-2764
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.07.2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022.

    Research areas

  • digital publics, public sphere, secrecy, secret societies, social organization, technological culture, transparency
  • Media and communication studies

Documents

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. The buzz before business
  2. Übermittlung, Passage, Kanal, Medium
  3. Land-sharing/-sparing connectivity landscapes for ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation
  4. Die Drittintervention in Beschwerdeverfahren vor dem EGMR
  5. Die Ökologisierung des Denkens
  6. Ressourcensicherung durch Nachhaltigkeitsmanagement
  7. External Influences on Regionalism
  8. The Pervasive Role of Pragmatics in Early Language
  9. Residual stresses near the hot sprues of as-cast Mg-Zn alloys investigated by STRESS-SPEC neutron diffractometer
  10. UK public perceptions of shale gas hydraulic fracturing
  11. Moral Sensitivity as a Precondition of Moral Distress
  12. Einleitung
  13. Situationen der Gruppenvergewaltigung
  14. Lernbegleitung im inklusiven Mathematikunterricht
  15. Ivano Alogna, Christine Bakker, Jean-Pierre Gauci (eds). Climate Change Litigation: Global Perspectives. Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, 2021. Pp. 543. ISBN: 9789004447608.
  16. Die totale Produktion
  17. Corporate Biodiversity Management Handbook
  18. Teacher Education for Sustainable Development
  19. Randlos in der Mehrheitskultur
  20. "Entäussertes Vermögen"
  21. Gesellschaftsrecht
  22. Denmark: “De Grønne”
  23. Task choice shields against incidental affective influences on effort-related cardiovascular response
  24. Transcultural Science from the Perspective of international Organisations
  25. Digitale Medien, Partizipation und Ungleichheit
  26. Legal and Regulatory Content for Small Satellites
  27. Entwicklung und Zukunft der Sexualität und Liebe
  28. Lebenszeiten
  29. Songwriting-Camp
  30. Biodegradable Magnesium Implants - How Do They Corrode in-vivo?
  31. Finden und Erfinden