Rational Criticism, Ideological Sustainability and Intellectual Leadership in the Digital Public Sphere

This review postulates that today's digital environments unveil an era of connectivity, in which digital communication devices exercise a general influence on social interactions and public deliberation. From this perspective, it argues that connective practices are likely to affect two main components of the normative public sphere, namely rational criticism and ideological sustainability. Drawing on the case of the 2011 Arab revolutions, in which social media proved to have a strategic function, this paper illustrates the ideological heterogeneity of social networks. Additionally, this article considers how issues of rational criticism and ideological sustainability could be improved by regulating online interactions and proposes that the digital divide could act as a natural process of regulation for today's connective and transnational public sphere

French primary elections and the internet, the social network of the Socialist party, the Coopol

Beyond traditional places for exchanges within organizations (for example, ward or branch meetings), virtual communication forums give members of political parties an opportunity to express their opinions on line. The social network of the Parti Socialiste (PS) in France, the Coopol, was created on January 12, 2010, and seems to hold out new prospects for public debate. The mediated exchanges which took place on this platform have allowed us to analyze the political debate among activists between July and October 2011. The results are based on different types of data (statistical analysis of text, web surveys and qualitative interviews) gathered while observing the debate on the forum and through interviews with voters and activists. The rationale for the use of three different approaches is related to the fact that the article presents several studies that can be evaluated in their totality, but should be taken singly in each case. The information provided by this article makes it an important case study which explains in an empirical way the latest theoretical approaches within this research field

Hasta La Vista Privacy, or How Technology Terminated Privacy

Lawyers find great joy in pointing out the destructive effects of digital technology on privacy and naturally expect the law to avert overexposure of people’s personal information. This essay takes a different view by arguing that the trajectory of technological developments renders the expansive collection of personal data inevitable, and hence the law’s primary interest should lie in regulating the use—not the collection—of information. This does not foreshadow the end of privacy, but rather suggests a necessary reconceptualization of privacy in the digital era. Along those lines we first need to acknowledge that people increasingly sacrifice voluntarily some of their privacy to enjoy the benefits of technology. Second, the ready availability of a huge volume of personal information creates attention scarcity, such that the chances a person’s privacy will be intruded are diminished. Most importantly, though, once the law accepts the inevitability of the collection of personal information, it will be best in the position to focus attention on ensuring that the collected information is appropriately used, instead of wasting resources on trying to hinder in vain its collection. This more realistic approach calls for alternative means of regulation, like self-regulation or emphasis on informed consent, and facilitates the flow of information by reducing the transactional cost of its sharing and dissemination