Human Agency and the Revitalization of the Public Sphere

Abstract

This article introduces a theory of human agency that helps identify and integrate factors that may be important for explaining why the advent of the Internet has not revitalized the public sphere. The theory suggests three types of interrelated explanations. One type of explanation focuses on the “economy of attention”—limits to human information processing and resulting tradeoffs. A second type of explanation, psychosocial structure, includes the development of routines of Internet use that confine that use to conventional activity. It also includes the decline of traditional political organization, which reduces participation incentives. Ultimately, however, attention and structure serve only as deterrents, not as bars to revitalization. Political disinterest serves as the final bar. This disinterest can best be understood as due to developmental factors that serve as a crucial impediment to a flourishing e–public sphere.