Abstract
The American democratic experiment has always had fractious elements. This has been the case even when there was general acceptance of the idea that decisions should be made entirely on the basis of rationality. In the twenty-first century, the assumption of a rational public, however, has been sorely tested, especially in social media that have become perhaps the principal means of democratic discourse. Social media have come to dominate the public sphere, and they have increasingly become dominated by vitriol and prejudice. The value of toleration of opposing views has now become a frail reed and the practice of ethical communication increasingly calls for, not just acceptance within the bounds of one’s own characterization of opponents, but a recognition of alterity, the necessity of self-definition and the practice of humanity in terms defined by the other, however onerous that may seem.
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Notes
- 1.
Milton, Areopagitica and Of Education, 50.
- 2.
Milton. Areopagitica and Of Education. 29–30.
- 3.
Damon and Colby, The Power of Ideals. Kindle, n.p.
- 4.
Damon and Colby, The Power of Ideals. Kindle, n.p.
- 5.
Lauren Cassani Davis. “Do Emotions and Morality Mix?”
- 6.
Nithanand, Schaffner & Gill, “Online Political Discourse in the Trump Era.”
- 7.
Bolter, “Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse.”
- 8.
Bolter, “Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse.”
- 9.
Re, “Trump Camp Fires Back after Twitter Labels Biden Video ‘Manipulated.’”
- 10.
Hoffman, Citizens Rising. 18.
- 11.
Hoffman, Citizens Rising, 23.
- 12.
Tucker, Theocharis, Roberts and Barberá, “From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media and Democracy.”
- 13.
“Opportunities of Digital Media,” n.d. https://www.digitaldemocracy.nz/overview-of-opportunities
- 14.
Dimock, “An Update on our Research into Trust, Facts and Democracy.”
- 15.
Hsu, “People Choose News That Fits Their Views.”
- 16.
Festinger, Cognitive Dissonance.
- 17.
Nickerson, “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises.”
- 18.
Anderson, Imagined Communities.
- 19.
Pariser, The Filter Bubble.
- 20.
Hull, “Why Social Media May Not Be So Good for Democracy.”
- 21.
Lessig, Code: Version 2.0, 298.
- 22.
Sissela, Bok, Lying.
- 23.
Arendt, The Human Condition, 25, argued that “the foundation of the polis was preceded by the destruction of all organized units resting on kinship [which broadened the scope of commitment] and that, in this polis, “Thought was secondary to speech, but speech and action were considered to be coeval and coequal, of the same rank and the same kind; and this originally meant not only that most political action, in so far as it remains outside the sphere of violence, is indeed transacted in words, but more fundamentally that finding the right words at the right moment, quite apart from the information or communication they may convey, is action.”
- 24.
Habermas, Structural Transformation.
- 25.
Darr, “A ‘Dialogue of the Deaf.’”
- 26.
Christians and Traber, Communication Ethics.
- 27.
Siebert, Patterson, and Schramm, Four Theories.
- 28.
Commission on Freedom of the Press. A Free and Responsible Press.
- 29.
James Madison, Federalist No. 10. (1787).
- 30.
Rosen, “America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare.”
- 31.
James Madison, “Report on the Virginia Resolutions,” (January 1800) Writings 6:385—401.
- 32.
Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to Edward Carrington from Paris,” January 16, 1787.
- 33.
Petty and Cacioppo, Communication and Persuasion.
- 34.
Peter F. Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment.”
- 35.
Buber, I and Thou.
- 36.
Levinas, Humanism. 32.
- 37.
Levinas, Humanism, 33.
- 38.
Levinas, Alterity, 102. See also Jankélévitch, Forgiveness.
- 39.
Levinas, Alterity, 104.
- 40.
Levinas, Alterity, 127.
- 41.
See Fortner, “Genocide and Public Engagement,” and “Markers of Evil, 149–157.”
- 42.
Lacorne, The Limits of Tolerance.
- 43.
Sullivan, Piereson & Marcus, Tolerance, 1.
- 44.
Sullivan, Piereson & Marcus, Tolerance, 2.
- 45.
Sullivan, Piereson & Marcus, Tolerance, 3.
- 46.
Connolly, Identity/Difference, Chap. 2.
- 47.
Weissberg, Pernicious Tolerance.
- 48.
See Hinorimus-Wendt and Wallace, “The Sociological Imagination and Social Responsibility.” Teaching Sociology, 76–88.
- 49.
McCarthy, “Introduction,” Moral Consciousness 11.
- 50.
Berlin, Liberty.
- 51.
Young, Personal Autonomy, 2.
- 52.
See Rawls, A Theory ofJustice.
- 53.
See Sandel, Justice.
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Fortner, R.S. (2021). Opposing Rhetorical Visions of the Social Imaginary: Social Media and the Public Sphere. In: Ward, S.J.A. (eds) Handbook of Global Media Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32103-5_59
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