Emotion and politics in a mediated public sphere: Questioning democracy, responsibility and ethics in a computer mediated world

Abstract

This article debates the extent to which particular forums of the internet enable democratic discussions around social and political issues, developing the interest in cyber-geographies from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The paper investigates discussions around abortion in the UK media, and public response(s) to such discussions. The analysis originates from an article written for the Huffington post by political editor Medhi Hasan and deconstructs subsequent reactions to this through mainstream media and news sites, comments pages on these sites, and reactions on Twitter. We assess the democratic potential of these types of media, developing Habermasian notions of the public sphere by analyzing the extent to which specific forums within the internet sphere play a role in facilitating emotions in political discussions. We also discuss the impact of individual narrative and personal perspective and its role within this quasi-political space. In so doing, we question the extent to which these types of ‘new media’, as a forum for public discussion and interaction, enable democratic deliberation by assessing the engagement between users of this sphere, and the nature of those discussions. This presents an assessment of computer mediated communication as a new way of ‘doing’ politics through its absence and presence(s) and through ideas of distance, moral responsibility, and an understanding of ethics and care at-a-distance, presenting a holistic account of how we might envision these debates playing out.