Blackwell Reference Online

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The public sphere is defined as a network of all the communicative spaces within which public affairs are debated and a public opinion is formed (→  Public Sphere ; Public Opinion ). Such an infrastructure of political communication is crucial for democratic self-government and the social integration of modern society. Both functions seem to be threatened if the public sphere decays into a multitude of arenas that are just loosely connected (if at all) and do not form a coherent space for deliberation (→  Deliberativeness in Political Communication ; Political Discourse ). From a sociological point of view the fragmentation (i.e., stratification) of the public sphere seems to be the result either of social inequality ( Fraser 1992 ) or of individualization in the postmodern age ( Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002 ). In contrast, communication scholars refer to the media dominance over public communication of current societies. In this view the fragmentation of the mediated public sphere can then be described in at least three distinct dimensions: fragmentation of media channels, fragmentation of content, and fragmentation of audiences (see also Dahlgren 2005 ). The enormous growth and the differentiation of the national media systems are focused on in the first dimension. Instead of having only a few radio stations and print media of national importance, there is now a multitude ... log in or subscribe to read full text