受诅咒的命运?——从自由公共领域到数字公共领域

A Cursed Fate? From the Free Public Sphere to the Digital Public Sphere

西方世界自18世纪以来,公共领域经历了自由公共领域、有组织的公共领域和数字化公共领域的三次转型,今天正处在数字公共领域阶段。如何看待公共领域的结构转型?包容与商谈的关系可以作为理论的坐标。以参与者的包容的普遍性和意见形式的说理性特征来衡量,自由的公共领域具有较强的说理性,但具有精英主义特征,劳动者和妇女被排斥在外,议题被限制在财产权和人权范围,具有典型的资产阶级性质。在组织化的公共领域中,国家和组织取代了个人成为公共领域的主要参与者,公共舆论和意见被自上而下地控制和操纵,民众虽然在法律上被赋予了参与的权利,但实际上却被剥夺了发挥作用的机会,因而它是一个弱包容和强控制的公共领域。数字公共领域时代,虽然更多的人被赋予了自我表达的机会和手段,但公共领域日益陷入了分裂和冲突,成为非理性情感和欲望表演的空间,因而是一个强包容和弱商谈的公共领域。如果说,包容性与商谈性的统一是公共领域的理想,从自由公共领域到数字公共领域的演变是否表明:公共领域参与空间的扩大必然带来其质量和品质的下降?这是我们时代面对的难题。

Since the 18th century,the public sphere in the Western world has undergone three transformations:free public sphere,organized public sphere,and digital public sphere.Today,we are in the third stage.How to view the structural transformation of the public sphere? We can take inclusion,deliberation and the relation between them as a theoretical coordinate.In terms of inclusion and deliberation,as a free discussion sphere of free and equal individuals,free public sphere has strong feature of rational justification,but it is limited in inclusion and elitist.Workers and women are excluded,issues are limited to the issues of property and individual rights,and its participants are bourgeois and freeman.In the organized public sphere,state institutions and large corporations have replaced individuals as agents,and public opinion and opinions are controlled and manipulated from top to bottom.Although the people are legally granted the universal right to participate,they are actually deprived of the opportunity and means to play active role,so it a weakly inclusive and strongly controlled public sphere.In the era of digital public domain,although more people are given opportunities and means of self-expression,the public sphere is increasingly fragmented and trapped in various conflicts.Digital sphere is filled with irrational emotions and self-performance,so it is a strong inclusive and weak deliberative public domain.If the unity of inclusivity and deliberation is the normative ideal of the public sphere,does the process from the free public sphere to the digital public sphere indicate that the expansion of participation space will inevitably lead to a decline in its quality? This is a difficult problem that our era is facing.