This document discusses civic media projects and their relationship to the public sphere. It identifies three main functions of civic media within the public sphere model: 1) Strengthening discussion and engagement between citizens in the public sphere; 2) Facilitating communication between the public sphere and the state to influence policymaking; and 3) Increasing transparency from the state to citizens to improve oversight and trust. The goal of this classification is not to explain every civic media project, but to identify common functions they can serve in relation to the public sphere and democratic processes.

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CIVIC MEDIA FUNCTIONS INSIDE THE PUBLIC SPHERE MODEL
Submitted by samuelbarros on April 8, 2015 ­ 2:35pm
How does each kind of civic media project work in relation with the public sphere? How can we understand the
relationship between civic media projects and the public sphere? I would like to address these questions by
classifying the civic media functions inside the public sphere model. It’s true that there are some different
understandings about this concept and its operationalization, but for this post I am just going to use a basic model
inspired by the Habermas’ concept.
First of all, we need to remember some key points about the public sphere and its relationship with society and the
state. The public sphere is a process that happens when common citizens (citizens without state power; people
from society) come together to know and discuss public issues. Thereby this isn’t a formal institution, it isn’t the
public space or an even is just a specific time when citizens are together deliberating. Instead, it is the whole
process. The public sphere is the constant process of public deliberation between citizens over time at public
spaces.
According to Habermas, the public sphere does the intermediation between the society and state. The public sphere
is the historically legitimated strategy by which citizens can influence the decisions inside the state. This is a
communicative process in which common citizens exchange (and sometimes change) arguments, build opinions and
positions, and draw strategies to influence the sphere of decisions (government, parliament and courts).
To summarize, we need to keep in mind that the public sphere is the mediating instance between society with its
interests (sometimes divergent) and the state institutions that make political decisions.
Now I am going to speak about the civic media functions related to the public sphere. As you can see in the picture,
I think it is possible to identify at least three types of functions. First, the red vector indicates the relationship
between society and the public sphere. Citizens can create civic media to strengthen the public sphere, which in
turn can motivate others to engage in the public sphere. This engagement strengthens the relations (we could say
social capital) inside the public sphere and, at the same time, other social relations outside public sphere.
In fact, there is a lot of software and many platforms to support citizens interacting with others about public issues.
These platforms can be appropriated by users for public debate (like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube) or they can be
made already to host public debate (like DemocracyOS). The common goal is to facilitate the communicative flow
between citizens. This type of civic media wants to improve the variety of information available inside the public
sphere and support public discussion. The democratic relevance of these projects comes from the capacity to
support a rational, open and equalitarian discussion between citizens.
Second, the green vector indicates the communicative flow between the public sphere and state. Generally, the
public sphere’s goal is to push the government toward citizens’ interests. This relationship is a big challenge,
because state agencies and the public sphere are circumstantially distant. In modern democracies, citizens can vote
for the most important positions inside the state, but there are few opportunities to address questions.
Nevertheless, many civic media have been created to support the public sphere in its communicative job with each
SAMUEL BARROS
Visiting Student
Samuel Barros is visiting student at
the MIT Center for Civic Media, PhD
Candidate in Political Communication
at the Federal University of Bahia
(UFBA, Brazil) and member of the
Center for Advanced Studies on Digital
Democracy (Brazil).
He is conducting research into the use
of the internet for increasing the citizen
influence in the policy making process.
His research topics are online
deliberation, public consultation and
crowdsourcing lawmaking.
Twitter: @samuel_barros

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part of the state. As an example, we can cite petition platforms (like Avaaz.org), but also some cases of citizen
journalism and online activism that looks for attention and actions from state agencies. At the same time, there are
some initiatives created by government to receive inputs from citizens (like We the People and Regulations.org).
The democratic value comes from the impact on the policy making process. I don’t mean that all demands from the
public sphere have to become policies, but that channels and mechanisms should exist to hear what people think
about topics which the government cares about. This connection is so important to democratic life because it
recognizes the citizens’ opinion and the public sphere importance.
Third, the blue vector indicates the communicative flow from the state to the public sphere. Especially, in the last
few years, there is a lot of initiatives to keep citizens better informed about public resources and what the
government is doing. One could say that this is a good way to improve citizen control over government and thus
increase the public’s confidence in the public actors and institutions. The democratic value of this kind of initiative
comes from the increase of transparency in the state sphere. For example, we can cite initiatives to open data
(Data.gov) and reports from public’ agencies.
There is an expectation that to know about state business motivates citizens to participate more in the public sphere
and address claims to the state. When this happens, I hope so that both green and blue vectors feed both ways
throughout a civic cycle.
***
Finally, I would like to say some words about the purpose of this classification. This is not to explain the real
practice of civic media projects. Instead, the goal is to help us to identify civic media functions inside the public
sphere model. Sometimes, complex cases have at the same time more than one function. This is not a problem,
once the aim is to classify the functions of civic media projects instead of the cases.
public sphere
civic media
Comments
Permalink Submitted by samuelbarros on April 29, 2015 ­ 2:34pm
Comment:
Thank you for your comment, Willow.
I don't know. I am thinking about what you said. The picture is about the classic model. Maybe it works just for the
classical political topics, like economy. But sometimes we have to think on the private, public and state issues at
the same time.
Maybe, like Nancy Fraser did before, we have to rethink the public sphere model once we have a new tech base
(digital devices) and political issues (new civil rights, environmentalism, global citizenship, ...).
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