This thesis investigates the potential for radio on the Internet to enhance processes of communication and media practice in the form of new a public sphere. Drawing on the work of Marshall McLuhan, the early stages of this thesis present an enquiry into the unique positive qualities of both radio and the Internet. The argument that follows contends that radio presented on the Internet can draw from the perceived technological benefits of each individual medium, combining as a potential site for public spheres. Both Habermas’s liberal public sphere and contemporary critiques of the concept are examined to define a range of principles that could be tested against relevant examples. The increasing commercialisation of the Internet is presented as a challenge to the normative ideals of a public sphere and counter-balances the optimism of a technologically determinist approach. A series of thematic codes are developed from the relevant theory and combined with qualitative interviews. This forms the framework for a thematic analysis of three individual case studies: Unwelcome Guests, an anti-corporate radio programme, SW Radio Africa, “the independent voice of Zimbabwe,” and NH Making Waves, the radio arm of a community peace activist group. The study investigates opportunities for these three individual case studies to act as public spheres, by examining the interplay that occurs between both Internet and radio practices. As the thematic analysis will demonstrate, placing radio content on the Internet presents new opportunities to diversify content and audiences through collaborative production and improved distribution. Recommendations for further research emphasise the need to pursue the Internet’s role in the public sphere potential of radio.

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title Blogging.se – a study on the swedish blogosphere from a Habermasian public sphere-perspective (Bloggning.se – en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori)</p><p>Author Anders Larsson</p><p>Aim To see whether or not weblogs (blogs) could be said to rejuvenate the public sphere, as it was first described and later re-evaluated by Jürgen Habermas.</p><p>Method A quantitative analysis of 733 randomly selected swedish weblogs has been done. This analysis set out to see what different categories of bloggers (difference in f.e. gender and age) wrote about, and whether or not these subject categories could be said to play a part in constituting and/or rejuvenating a public sphere.</p><p>Main results The main results of the quantitative study was that even though most blogs write about ‘private’ subjects, the most popular blogs, i.e. those who received the most comments or trackbacks, where the ones concerning society-centered subjects. Also, a significant effect of gender was discovered regarding what type of subject one tends to blog about. Women in general wrote about private matters, whereas men tended to write about society-centered subjects. This essay argues that the most important feature of the blogosphere is not that posts are written on society-centered subjects, subjects that might be considered “more important”. Instead, the focus should be on the fact that bloggers do produce media texts themselves, instead of being a passive recipient. The essay takes into account three key features of the public sphere, as described by Habermas:</p><p>inclusivity, the disregard of social status and that any issue can be raised for rational debate. It is found that although the blogosphere is not without its problems, one could very well argue that it better meets these key features than the original concept of the public sphere.</p><p>Length 55 pages</p><p>Course Media and communication studies D</p><p>Period Fall semester 2006</p><p>Tutor Lowe Hedman</p><p>Keywords Weblog, Blog, Jürgen Habermas, Quantitative method, Public sphere</p>

Abstract Title Blogging.se – a study on the swedish blogosphere from a Habermasian public sphere-perspective (Bloggning.se – en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori) Author Anders Larsson Aim To see whether or not weblogs (blogs) could be said to rejuvenate the public sphere, as it was first described and later re-evaluated by Jürgen Habermas. Method A quantitative analysis of 733 randomly selected swedish weblogs has been done. This analysis set out to see what different categories of bloggers (difference in f.e. gender and age) wrote about, and whether or not these subject categories could be said to play a part in constituting and/or rejuvenating a public sphere. Main results The main results of the quantitative study was that even though most blogs write about ‘private’ subjects, the most popular blogs, i.e. those who received the most comments or trackbacks, where the ones concerning society-centered subjects. Also, a significant effect of gender was discovered regarding what type of subject one tends to blog about. Women in general wrote about private matters, whereas men tended to write about society-centered subjects. This essay argues that the most important feature of the blogosphere is not that posts are written on society-centered subjects, subjects that might be considered “more important”. Instead, the focus should be on the fact that bloggers do produce media texts themselves, instead of being a passive recipient. The essay takes into account three key features of the public sphere, as described by Habermas: inclusivity, the disregard of social status and that any issue can be raised for rational debate. It is found that although the blogosphere is not without its problems, one could very well argue that it better meets these key features than the original concept of the public sphere. Length 55 pages Course Media and communication studies D Period Fall semester 2006 Tutor Lowe Hedman Keywords Weblog, Blog, Jürgen Habermas, Quantitative method, Public sphere

My dissertation employed intellectual historian Michel Foucault’s notion of biopolitics—which can be most broadly parsed as the political organization of life—to examine the way the lives of Aboriginal people were regulated and surveilled in relation to settler European norms. The study is a focused investigation into a topic with global ramifications: the governance of race and sexuality and the effect of such governance on the production of apparently inclusive cultural productions within the public spheres. I argue that the way in which subaltern peoples have been governed in the past and the way their cultures have been appropriated continue to be in the present is not extraneous to but rather formative of what is often misleadingly called “the” public sphere of dominant societies. In the second part, I analyze the legacies of this biopolitical moment and emphasize, particularly, the cultural politics of affect and trauma in relation to this (not quite) past. Authors addressed include: Xavier Herbert, P. R. Stephensen, Rex Ingamells, Kim Scott, Alexis Wright, and others. I also examine Australian Aboriginal policy texts througout the twentieth century up to the "Bringing Them Home" Report (1997).

This thesis examines how Colombian women within the city of Atlanta utilize Facebook as a parallel public sphere, a cultural phenomenon through which the silenced use mediums of popular culture to discuss private and public dilemmas (Dewey 2009). Through ethnographic research in Atlanta, I analyze how these young women use Facebook as they negotiate their identity through the multiple contexts of their everyday lives. Drawing from feminist critiques, I explore whether Facebook provides an alternative to the traditional public sphere, while also investigating how power structures influence freedom of expression online. Through an international network of friends, these women tackle topics of discrimination, personal struggles, and individual accomplishments. By addressing pertinent issues, such as immigration reform policies, through a public forum, Colombian women become activists in order to disseminate information and educate others. This study explores the parallel public sphere, as well as its possible implications for diasporic communities, by examining the power of social connections and the performance of public personas through an arena not bounded by physical space.

The enhanced discursive opportunity structures that the Internet enables has inspired a momentous revolution in the Nigerian media landscape. This dissertation chronicles the emergence and flowering of the citizen and alternative online journalism of the Nigerian diasporic public sphere located primarily in the United States. Using case-study research, it profiles the major diasporan online citizen media outlets and highlights instances where these geographically distant citizen media sites shaped and influenced both the national politics and policies of the homeland and the media practices of the domestic media formation. The study makes the case that while it is customary in the scholarship on sovereignty, state-civil society relations, and diaspora studies to emphasize domination and one-dimensionality in cultural flows, the participation of members of the Nigerian digital diaspora in the politics and discourses of their homeland, from their exilic locations in the West through the instrumentality of online citizen media, illustrates that citizens, especially in the age of the Internet, are not mere powerless subjects and receivers of informational flows from the institutions of the state and corporate mass media but can be active consumers and producers of informational resources and even purveyors of political power in ways that amply exemplify trans-local reciprocality. It also argues that the Nigerian diaspora media might very well be a prototype of an evolving, Internet-enabled, trans-local, and mutual informational and cultural exchange between the educated deterritorialized ethnoscapes of peripheral nations whose exile in the West endues them with symbolic and cultural capital and the private institutions and governments of their homelands. The study recommends a comparative study of the online citizen journalism of Third World virtual diasporas in the West.

This essay will focus on the people using and are involved in, and have a large interest in the horror film genre. The purpose of this essay is to find what urge these people to continuously watch horror movies and how they believe to be acknowledge by the society in a modern sense. Our study is mainly based on two separate interviews and therefore, mainly from the users perspective. This essay is also complemented by earlier research on this topic. In context of stigma, violence debate, exclusion we found that the users truly can be found in a rare type of alternative sphere, besides the public sphere. But this is also in relationship with age and gender of the user. Our stands in all this is that horror movies should be accepted as an escape from reality, not a genre that twist people to become violent, and that users can see the difference between reality and fiction and using horror movies should not be considered a deviant behavior in a modern society.

Communications scholarship faces a convergent crisis. Research on networks includes the role of information networks in supporting social movements, networked civil society, the information society, and new forms of communication. But while communications literature utilizes a variety of approaches to describe the impact of networked communications, a dearth of technical expertise permeates scholarship. Despite the discourse on networks potentially bridging previously distinct disciplines, the lack of a fundamental understanding of communications networks and relationships between technical and socio-political networks remains a consistent gap. This thesis will investigate the extent that opposition to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in Europe constitute a networked public sphere. Through studying the role of civl society and the networked public in the European ACTA debate, the horizontal and vertical dimensions of socio-political and communications technology networks are not only illuminated, but the importance of analyzing the mechanisms through which vertical hierarchies enclose the public sphere become abundantly clear. This research provides the foundation for an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the relationship between information technology and socio-political networks and offers lessons for information policy makers, communications scholars, and networked civil society within the context of European democracy.

This thesis considers the social, economic and ideological climate in the German Democratic Republic in the last decade of its existence (the 1980s) when excessive labor demands lead the country to import tens of thousands of “contract workers” from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Focusing primarily on theoretical contradictions in GDR socialism, and their impact on the day to day lives Vietnamese workers, I will argue that ideologically freighted pronouncements of “socialist fraternity” with Vietnam functioned to obscure the true, economic reasons for labor importation.

Title: Digital christmas greetings - the viral communicators, public sphere and democracy(Digitala julhälsningar - de virala kommuniktörerna, offentligheten och demokratin)Number of pages: 41Author : Anna-Sara TorgnysdotterTutor: Ylva EkströmCourse : Media and Communication Studies DPeriod: Spring, semester 2010University: Devision of Media and Communications, Department of Information Science,Uppsala UniversityPurpose: The purpose of this study is to see if social media could be an arena for the usersto increase democracy and the public sphere. Studying the role and possibilitys of the individual.Is there a space for any one to act and debate?Method: A qualitative analysis based on interviews with ten users of social media - viralcommunicators. They were discussing public and private sphere, democracy, norms andbehavior in social media.Theoretical platform: The theoretical basis has its roots in sociology: Ervin Goffman´sidea on self-presentation and social interaction, Manuel Castels´ theories of the networksociety and Jürgen Habermas idea of the public spehere.Main result: The viral communicators are ambivalent in their use of socialmedia. They are users because they want to be but also because they feel forced to - professionalor private. Their primary aim in communicating in social media could summarize“self-expression”.The users of social media talks contradictivly about their feelings wheter they feel safe orunsafe in the social media situation.They talk about lacking time to debate on the internet and they feel confused about what´sprivate and whats public.Social norms and unwritten laws rules communication in social media and the loosening inpublic and private sphere creates confusion about to whom and where you communicate.This results in avoiding messages that might offend or harass. Because the viral communicatorscommunicate with a broad group of people, including every one - from your cousin toyour boss - there is a vague idea of the tolerance from the target audiences and therefor themessages tend to be very conservative and safe.The viral communicator uses that public arena the social media offers like traditional postcards. A christmas greeting to keep in touch and stress their prosperity and wellbeing.Keywords : Social media, viral communication, Habermas, Goffman, Castells, publicsphere, private sphere, social norms, unwritten laws