the transformation of the public sphere and the web 2.0 tunisian case lecture

it's a little preview on my research work ...
we are living a big transformation because of the revolution of the web 2.0 and we still don't know when it will end what will be the consequences or what we mean and the results of it, maybe we know some of the causes , we know how the web 2.0 is emerging ,also why it is an evolution, and why it is in the same time a revolution even it’s a contradictious thing, we are influenced by the last events in Tunisia : A revolution, i would like to talk about sharing the experience we are living today , we have some Tunisians friends and we are watching … observing what is going on, and maybe if you don't have them in our / your list in facebook or such a followers in twitter , we are watching videos uploaded by them, or they are friends of friends, they told us about them, we are watching the updates, the status, the content shared here and there …
i guess the world is changing … yes this is we call the dynamics of life but a revolution we are talking about means the transformation from the classic public sphere : of the public places salons, the souks … to the “we” sphere this is not a new phenomena we have been living this change from years, it starts with the accession of the web 2.0 …
the opinion leaders and the opinion makers are changing, we have new influencers and the revolution this time ( i mean in tunisia ) was advertised mostly in the facebook youtube, it was twitted blogs we have one blogger in the government today,... cause all the medias were censored before, so people are acting in the new public sphere a “digital sphere” ... what is really the public sphere , this is what we are talking about the sphere is changing it’s starting to be social , it’s starting to be democratic .

"By the 'public sphere' we mean first of all the realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed... Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted frashion - that is, with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions - about matters of general interest... The expression 'public opinion' refers to the tasks of criticism and control which a public body of citizens informally practices... vis-a-vis a ruling class." (Habermas, 1964 quoted in Pusey, 1987: 89) ...

• The realm of our social life : are we sociable ? we do? yes the studies prove that we are more sociable than anytime, people communicate more on line than in real life we still have the social life, we add to this one a bigger marge we socialize the politics, we have friends which we socialize with and they have influence on us and we have influence on them more than anything you can see a big movement established by a simple person, a simple community manager who create the public opinion.
• Public opinion : in wikipedia we define the Public opinion such the aggregate of individual attitudes or beliefs held by the adult population. Public opinion can also be defined as the complex collection of opinions of many different people and the sum of all their views, where we can see the public opinion transformation and making in the web 2.0 sphere cause we have the most important opinion makers now : bloggers , citizen journalists ... the public media are here for this making ;
  
• Public body : Political socialization is a big concept that facilitate the emergence of a generation of informed and activist youth, this is what we observe today in tunisia , people are moving like one body cause the communication between them is very strong how they do freely today ? and secretly ? and how you can make the youth active, the dare the challenges;
• The guarantee of freedom : of assembly and association and the freedom to express and publish their opinions : the democratization of the internet access and the smoothness , the memorization ... and other characteristics provide you the way to have this freedom even if you are censored ( in invite you to read this blog )
• Criticism and control: we are talking here about the governance 2.0 when people are giving their opinion about the management of the public affairs , and if you take a tour you will see in the comments , or in the forums or communities build for that : discussions about the public affairs .
  

It’s a little preview based on the definition of the public sphere.

Rahmo Mohamed