Do You Want To Know A Secret? Habermas' Public Sphere & Wikileaks as a part of it

Abstract

Habermas is one of the most influential thinkers of the past century. Among other things, he developed a communicative model that is the foundation for the functioning of democracy. Through an analysis of Habermas' theory of the public sphere, and particularly the extent to which the internet can be seen as a 'global' public sphere, the author concludes that although traditional shortcomings of the public sphere subsist, the rise of the internet is a promising development for the functioning of democracy. Wikileaks is analysed as the main example of how this would work. The author refers to Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (2010) and uses passages from the novel to support his claims.