H
aberrations Sixty years ago, Habermas showed how the public sphere or realm of public opinion was constructed. His analysis played an important role when Germany was debating the possibilities of having a critical press in the face of a polarization that paralyzed or disoriented reflection in public spaces. Thanks to Habermas’ work, we now realize how the printed press played a fundamental role in the construction of a reflective and critical citizenry in the era of the Cold War.
From that time to the present, it is clear that the proliferation of digital media has come to severely disrupt the future of the printed press: its readers have moved to digital screens. Thus, a sphere of capital accumulation was opened that seriously shook the economy and the technology of the main newspapers in the world. Those who understood the importance of this new communication channel – the networks – were able to move towards the new information scenario and survived the collapse of the printed media. The amounts of capital in this new technological field allowed a new stage of centralization and economic concentration.
The blessed social networks have an ambiguous role for this reason. They are a surface where all kinds of messages pass through, but their owner can inhibit or enhance the messages that best suit his business. If in Habermas’ time it was valid to recover the message of the illustration –Dare to think for yourself
– In the 21st century we are witnessing a regression whose consequences are still unclear. By this I mean that digital media, unlike print media, operate on a different scale: they are by nature potentially global and, therefore, their messages move over a more powerful strategic field. Whoever controls the network can, in short, direct the flow of communication and set limits on opinions and global collective reflection. Public opinion experiences an ambivalent situation in this sense: it can count on a freer territory, but also one that is more controllable or manipulable.
Snowden showed that screen readers are also read. That the user of a mobile phone is being watched and his tastes and inclinations are the subject of an inventory that companies take advantage of to better sell their products. In this context, it is not difficult to understand why Elon Musk finally decided to take over Twitter. His ability to do business in the new field opened by digital communications was evident very early on: he was one of the first to install mechanisms for making payments via the Internet (PayPal).
Now he continues with this logic: subsuming communication networks to the logic of capital communication. However, now he crosses a border and goes openly beyond the economy: by taking over the network he named X, he appropriates an instrument to promote his businesses and those power entities that are favorable to his business projects. This is what is happening right now: by extending his influence to the political field, he promotes Trump, sabotages Kamala Harris, prohibits pro-Palestine messages, pampers Milei, to mention only some of his most striking messages. The fact that the European Union has reminded him that there are codes of conduct in the field of communications, regulations that he would have to abide by in the old continent, and that he has responded to the emissaries with a mocking tone, only shows us how sympathetic this type of digital authoritarianism can be. If he can censor, is there anyone who can set a limit? Isn’t democracy at risk with this type of millionaires openly manipulating the channels through which political messages flow?
* PhD in Social Sciences
