Habermas and public reason in the digital age: Technology and deliberative democracy
Year: 2016
Type: article
Abstract: Scholars defending the deliberative model of democracy have focused much of their attention on argumentation and criteria for offering public reasons in deliberative processes, but have paid little attention to the ways in which digital technologies mediate such deliberations. Conversely, critical theorists of technology have emphasized the socially determined nature of technology, but have lacked a theory of democracy through which to normatively assess technologies that mediate public discourse. Through a reworking of Jürgen Habermas’s discourse-based theory of democracy, my research provides a new understanding of the flows of political communication and power in the democratic public sphere and the implications of digital technologies for democratic participation.
Author: Asaf Bar‐Tura
Institution: Loyola University Chicago
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2530283654