Task 7.1 – Task 7.2

Social media has been a popular network for today’s generation, making it one of the major communication and social community. This social phenomena are impacting our daily lives, this includes political scenes and how social media can be a form of political discourse. This technological advancement brings back Habermas’ theory of public sphere, where social media is now becoming a place where private people come together as a public (Habermas 1989). The public sphere on its own can be defined as an imaginary community, where people come together and discuss about the societal issue where political scene can come into place.

Social media has the ability for people to provide free informations, a platform where it is known for its freedom of speech. The power of social media has allowed people to freely express their opinion, proven by “the increase in visible social movements on social media have led to assertions that people are empowered to engage in communicative action online” (Kruse, LM 2018) .

Social medias has created a place and a public sphere where the society can freely show their idea and opinion towards their political view. Though we need to keep in mind no matter how free the social media is, it still very much limited. Habernas has criticised how the public sphere still has its limitation. Mentioning how the public sphere has excluded the minorities and women. This resulted on a form of a barrier, contradicting the idea of social media as the most perfect form of public sphere (Kruse, ML et al 2018). In addition, we must notice the fact that the social media and internet in general are greatly controlled by large institution, especially when it comes to politic related contents.

In conclusion, social media is a good public sphere, but we must take notice of its limitation when it comes to political discourse.

Kruse, LM, Norris, DR, Flinchumb, JR 2018, “Social Media as a Public Sphere? Political on Social’, The Sociological Quarterly, VOL. 59, pp 62-84, retrieved 23 August 2019, Midwest Sociological Society.