We like to think walls belong to the past.
They don’t.
They evolve.
What once looked like walls made of concrete now show up as narratives, algorithms, and silent lines we don’t question enough.
https://open.substack.com/pub/associationredefine/p/invisible-walls-fear-control-division?r=6l8ed8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

#Democracy #DigitalDemocracy
#MediaLiteracy #Disinformation
#Systemsthinking #PoliticalEducation
#AlgorithmicBias #PublicSphere

A capacity for rational dialogue?

“Democracy depends on the belief of the people that there is some scope left for collectively shaping a challenging future.” Jürgen Habermas

"His abiding concern was the state of democracy and the fear of backsliding into the exclusionary and violent social order..." >>
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/books/jurgen-habermas-dead.html
#PublicSphere #PublicDiscourse #communication #dialogue #nationalism #violence #democracy #CriticalTheory

Jürgen Habermas has died: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas

#philosophy #germany #publicSphere

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The #Philosopher Jürgen #Habermas is dead. His work on the #publicsphere is essential to understand why not only #TV and #Radio, but also #socialnetworks and #AI #Chatbots need to be regulated so as to ensure that they serve -and not undermine- #democracy and #fundamentalrights.

Now it's time to read:

The Philosopher: Habermas and Us by Philipp Felsch, 208 p.,

Things Needed to Get Better: Conversations with Stefan Müller-Doohm and Roman Yos by Jürgen Habermas, 196 p.

The philosophical giant Jürgen Habermas has left us.

Habermas spent decades championing the "theory of communicative action" - the idea that democracy only functions when we actually listen to one another. Without his guiding voice, we face a chilling reality: a world where the loudest lies often drown out the most reasoned truths.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas

#Habermas #Democracy #Philosophy #PublicSphere #Communication #SocialTheory

New Article in Information & Organization: »Digital platforms and democratic publics: How social media platforms selectively appropriate and strategically subvert institutional logics«

One reason why it is so hard to reign into Big Tech social media platforms is their own contradictions. In a brand new article by Elke Schüßler, Sara Maric and myself, we try to unpack how Big Tech both expand and subvert democratic publics by looking at the case of YouTube – and explore the potentials and challenges of Fediverse alternatives based on decentralized architectures and distributed governance.

The issue is that both is true at the same time: YouTube has expanded our democratic public by lowering barriers for content creation and distribution; and it also has subverted our democratic public by amplifying extremist, emotionalising or propagandistic content.

To give another example, it is YouTube’s monopolistic market dominance is that makes it so strong and valuable as a market place for creators and users alike; at the same time, the proprietary governance by profit-driven algorithms leads to discriminatory practices such as shadow bans without accountability, frustrating both creators and users.

In our analysis, we show how YouTube navigates this contradictions and argue that decentralised and non-proprietary alternatives based on open standards and protocols would lead to different outcomes. Check out the abstract of the paper below:

This paper examines how social media platforms – as a new form of media organization – challenge the principles of a democratic public sphere, a key pillar of liberal-democratic societies. To do so, we draw on the institutional logics perspective, which allows connecting societal-level institutional orders with the ways in which organizations, sometimes strategically, use and thereby potentially redefine these orders. Based on comprehensive secondary data, we analyze YouTube as an exemplary case of how the logics of the market, the corporation, and the community are selectively appropriated and strategically subverted by large, centralized and commercially oriented social media platforms. YouTube rhetorically deploys market logic narratives of meritocratic competition and equal opportunity, yet operationally creates algorithmic hierarchies that favor established creators and concentrate market power. Similarly, the platform invokes the community logic by promoting democratic participation and collective expression while its algorithmic architecture amplifies polarizing content and fragments public discourse. The corporate logic manifests through bureaucratic governance structures that extend organizational control to users without reciprocal accountability mechanisms. Examining the Fediverse as an organizational alternative based on decentralized architectures and distributed governance, we argue that these mechanisms reflect strategic choices rather than technological inevitability. Highlighting the power of social media platforms to manipulate and undermine institutional logics, we discuss how contestation around their governance also entails contestation around the interinstitutional system structuring societies because of their important role in shaping the public sphere.

The full text of the article “Digital platforms and democratic publics: How social media platforms selectively appropriate and strategically subvert institutional logics” is now available over at “Information & Organization”.

A willingness to think publicly

In Australia, one avoids talking about politics, religion and sex. "Jon Kudelka’s political cartoons were made with true conviction. A willingness to think publicly." >>
https://theconversation.com/as-beautiful-as-they-were-powerful-jon-kudelkas-political-cartoons-were-made-with-true-conviction-275538

https://www.kudelkashop.com/
Image: Jon Kudelka
#PublicSphere #parrhesia #Australia #wildlife #art #climate #FossilFuels

"The Chinese internet is shaped by forces not unique to China but present in autocracies and democracies alike: the amplification of illiberal voices, the contraction of the public sphere, the erosion of common sense. Today, both autocrats and oligarchic CEOs have taken over the once-open space of the web, monitoring our private lives, ensnaring us in an endless feed, and extracting our attention for influence and profit. As I write, Silicon Valley’s attention moguls work alongside the ascendant Trump administration, centralizing power in their hands beyond democratic oversight. We find ourselves fettered by the very technologies that once promised to liberate us; they shape our behavior in ways we ourselves cannot even see, dictating what we choose to click and consume, to pay attention to and ignore, to say and not to say. The imperative for us to “live within the truth” — authentically and with greater human agency in the face of manipulative systems — has become more urgent than ever before."

https://restofworld.org/2026/wall-dancers-china-internet-book/

#Internet #China #PublicSphere #SocialMedia #SocialNetworks

“You talkin’ to me”

Taxi Driver at 50: Martin Scorsese’s film remains a troubling reflection of our times - a forlorn portrait of a society coming apart at the seams.

“There are a lot of Travis Bickles, especially right now.”

"They’re all talking to each other on the internet. When I first wrote about him, he was talking to nobody. He really was, at that point, the Underground Man. Now he’s the Internet Man."

"It is a sobering thought."
>>
https://theconversation.com/taxi-driver-at-50-martin-scorseses-film-remains-a-troubling-reflection-of-our-times-261662
#ressentiment #violence #discontent #masculinity #rage #racism #misogyny #EconomicDecline #loss #ranking #valorisation #ImperialistViolence #inequality #progress #regression #WesternModernity #SocialAcceleration #film #internet #PublicSphere #OnEdge