Across the world and particularly in the USA, historical evidence has become increasingly central to certain contemporary political and policy debates. Drawing on a survey of US media sources, Dustin Hornbeck and Joel Malin, discuss this trend and desc…
Category: public sphere
The future of public intellectualism lies in reforming the digital public sphere
Public intellectuals as they have traditionally been perceived, as individual scholars speaking truth to power, are a declining feature of public life. Responding to the centrality of digital communication in the public sphere Mark Murphy and Cristina Costa, argue that academia needs to further value and prioritise engagement with the digital public sphere and that beyond simply taking its forms […]
Smartphone-size screens make it harder to pay attention to and understand news stories
Smartphones have become a key medium through which information of all kinds is accessed. Even a small, but significant, amount of traffic to academic journals derives from smartphones. Their increasing popularity and power, have led some to argue they have an important role to play in maintaining an informed public. However, Johanna Dunaway and Stuart Soroka argue that the smaller […]
Do we (mis)recognise the political power of Twitter?
We are told that Twitter is the new public sphere, the place where we hold government accountable, encourage diverse voices, and provide resources for public benefit like education, healthcare, and welfare. Using the #metoo campaign as a case study, Naomi Barnes and Huw Davies question whether Twitter really is a public sphere or if it is simply a platform capitalist […]