Abstract

LEVY, PIERRE. The Unfinished Mutation of the Public Sphere. Signo pensam. [online]. 2012, vol.31, n.60, pp.96-103. ISSN 0120-4823.

This text analyzes the contemporary mutation of the public sphere resulting from the expansion of cyberspace; it also shows the new development opportunities that this mutation opens up to democracy and to collective discussion in particular. After providing quantitative data on the growth of digital communication and describing the rise of social computing, the major trends of the new public sphere are mentioned: global opening, the "all to all" and "peer to peer" structure, and the blurring of the private/public distinction. Nevertheless, the new opportunities for democratic collective intelligence will be fully achieved provided that the semantic interoperability problems posed by the multiplicity of languages and the incompatibility of classification systems have been solved. To sort out these problems, thus allowing some extent of reflectivity of collective intelligence in the cyberspace, I suggest the creation of a universal coordinates system that allows us to synchronize the virtually ininite diversity of human semantic agendas and online networks.

Keywords : Public sphere; cyber democracy; social computing; Web 2.0; collective intelligence; semantic space.

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