What Constitutes a Local Public Sphere? Building a Monitoring Framework for Comparative Analysis

Media and Communication

article

Renate Fischer¹  Alexa Keinert²  Otfried Jarren¹  Ulrike Klinger³ 

[1] Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich;Department of Political and Social Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin;European New School of Digital Studies, Europa-Universität Viadrina

关键词: comparative research;    local communication;    local public spheres;    participation and inclusion;   

DOI  :  10.17645/mac.v9i3.3984

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Cogitatio Press

【 摘 要 】

Despite the research tradition in analyzing public communication, local public spheres have been rather neglected by com‐munication science, although they are crucial for social cohesion and democracy. Existing empirical studies about localpublic spheres are mostly case studies which implicitly assume that cities are alike. Based on a participatory‐liberal under‐standing of democracy, we develop a theoretical framework, from which we derive a monitor covering structural, social,and spatial aspects of local communication to empirically compare local public spheres along four dimensions: (1) informa‐tion, (2) participation, (3) inclusion, and (4) diversity. In a pilot study, we then apply our monitor to four German cities thatare comparable in size and regional function (‘regiopolises’). The monitoring framework is built on local statistical data,some of which was provided by the cities, while some came from our own research. We show that the social structuresand the normative assessment of the quality of local public spheres can vary among similar cities and between the fourdimensions. We hope the innovative monitor prototype enables scholars and local actors to compare local public spheresacross spaces, places, and time, and to investigate the impact of social change and digitalization on local public spheres.

【 授权许可】

CC BY