Digital Lifeworld and Communicative Interaction: Conceptualizing the Transformative Potentials of Social Networking in the Public Sphere

Abstract

To understand how digital social media influences the reconceptualization of the Habermasian notion of the public sphere, I use “digital lifeworld” to describe people’s networking through digital affordances in the public sphere. Regarding how communicative interactions in the digital lifeworld contribute to the transformational potentials in the public sphere, I investigate three paradigms in conceptualizing the communicative interaction: connectivity (how to network), collectivity (what networking entails), and cooperativity (how to sustain networks and networking). Networking is the core to the conceptualization of this framework because networking constitutes the key component in the formation of the lifeworld and accounts for the interactive potentials in challenging the dominant interest in the public sphere. Thus, the influence of networking in the lifeworld where public opinions collide makes the public sphere a transformative structure, and this theoretical framework can help locate the emergent networks that encompass stronger tendencies to influence the public sphere.