Journal of Guangzhou University (Social Science Edition). 2024, 23(3): 28-37.
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Since the 18th century, the public sphere in the Western world has undergone three transformations: free public sphere, organized public sphere, and digital public sphere. Today, we are in the third stage. How to view the structural transformation of the public sphere? We can take inclusion, deliberation and the relation between them as a theoretical coordinate. In terms of inclusion and deliberation, as a free discussion sphere of free and equal individuals, free public sphere has strong feature of rational justification, but it is limited in inclusion and elitist. Workers and women are excluded, issues are limited to the issues of property and individual rights, and its participants are bourgeois and freeman. In the organized public sphere, state institutions and large corporations have replaced individuals as a gents, and public opinion and opinions are controlled and manipulated from top to bottom. Although the people are legally granted the universal right to participate, they are actually deprived of the opportunity and means to play active role, so it a weakly inclusive and strongly controlled public sphere. In the era of digital public domain, although more people are given opportunities and means of self-expression, the public sphere is increasingly fragmented and trapped in various conflicts. Digital sphere is filled with irrational emotions and self-performance, so it is a strong inclusive and weak deliberative public domain. If the unity of inclusivity and deliberation is the normative ideal of the public sphere, does the process from the free public sphere to the digital public sphere indicate that the expansion of participation space will inevitably lead to a decline in its quality? This is a difficult problem that our era is facing.Since the 18th century, the public sphere in the Western world has undergone three transformations: free public sphere, organized public sphere, and digital public sphere. Today, we are in the third stage. How to view the structural transformation of the public sphere? We can take inclusion, deliberation and the relation between them as a theoretical coordinate. In terms of inclusion and deliberation, as a free discussion sphere of free and equal individuals, free public sphere has strong feature of rational justification, but it is limited in inclusion and elitist. Workers and women are excluded, issues are limited to the issues of property and individual rights, and its participants are bourgeois and freeman. In the organized public sphere, state institutions and large corporations have replaced individuals as a gents, and public opinion and opinions are controlled and manipulated from top to bottom. Although the people are legally granted the universal right to participate, they are actually deprived of the opportunity and means to play active role, so it a weakly inclusive and strongly controlled public sphere. In the era of digital public domain, although more people are given opportunities and means of self-expression, the public sphere is increasingly fragmented and trapped in various conflicts. Digital sphere is filled with irrational emotions and self-performance, so it is a strong inclusive and weak deliberative public domain. If the unity of inclusivity and deliberation is the normative ideal of the public sphere, does the process from the free public sphere to the digital public sphere indicate that the expansion of participation space will inevitably lead to a decline in its quality? This is a difficult problem that our era is facing.