Citation:
[Journal:] Theory, Culture & Society [ISSN:] 1460-3616 [Volume:] 39 [Issue:] 4 [Publisher:] Sage [Place:] Thousand Oaks, CA [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 129-143
Abstract:
This article explores the question of how to understand social media following the Habermasian theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere. We argue for a return to political-economic fundamentals as the basis for analysing the public sphere and seek to establish a characteristic connection between digital-behavioural control and singularised audiences in the context of proprietary markets. In the digital constellation, it is less a matter of immobilising the citizen as a consumer but rather of their political activation – albeit in conditions under which commercial interests have primacy: privatisation without privatism.