Re-Conceptualizing Public Sphere in the Digital Era: From Habermas' Public Sphere to Digitally Networked Public Sphere

Abstract

Technological networks have established a new social morphology of the modern world. The paper provides an understanding of the notion of the networked public sphere by examining all the seminal notions to theorize the ‘Networked Public Sphere’. The paper reflects that the boundaries between old and new media have been blurred and the new media technologies have established a hybrid environment in which there is a huge interplay between conventional media and new media. The paper concludes that the political use of social media among citizens in the networked public sphere helps to devise strategies to be engaged in online and offline political activities and generate a public discourse among them that influence the political domains of the society.