Public sphere contestations in the digital age

Contemporary Western democracies have entered a new phase of enhanced public sphere contestation. In contrast to previous historical epochs marked by high degrees of political mobilization, we do not simply observe an increase in the intensity of contentious politics within the public sphere. The new quality of these conflicts can instead be seen in the way the media and the public sphere have themselves become a target of contention. In the new millennium, Western democracies have opened a field of social and political struggle over the utopia of the public sphere. What is at stake is the validity and the applicability of the underlying norms and principles of democracy in the context of digitalization and globalization.

The popular diagnosis of the presence (or diagnosis of our times) as postdemocracy does not grasp the new dynamics of contentious public sphere politics. Post-democracy is commonly seen as something that is passively endured or structurally embedded. It is something that just happens to our societies, a shared destiny because democracies cannot last and encounter a natural death. However, the transition from contentious politics within the public sphere to contention of the public sphere is not silent. Nor is it a linear process with a predefined outcome. The new contentiousness of the digital public sphere is an open-ended game that is not taking place somewhere at the periphery but encompasses the whole of the political system and its interrelations with media, markets and society. The way media has dramatically changed our daily lives and our professions has left a deep imprint on our democratic systems of political representation. Deep concerns with democracy not only affect state functioning but also other sectors, such as the economy, education and science. The plot for this large social and political struggle is still in the making. There is no central stage for performing the play, but many interrelated local, national and international stages with shifting audiences. Among the protagonists we find:

• 1. The digital industries, among them the big global players of social media capitalism, who in their role as collectors and merchants of big data often become the targets of political mobilization but can sometimes also become allies in the struggle for Internet freedom.