Habermas on Web 2.0

The price we pay for the growth in egalitarianism offered by the Internet is the decentralised access to unedited stories. In this medium, contributions by intellectuals lose their power to create a focus.

That’s Jürgen Habermas, originator of the concept of the public sphere, on Web 2.0, in his acceptance speech on winning the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the advancement of human rights.

Andrew Keen has a nice post about Habermas’ speech and his statements about the web.

It’s significant that Habermas has now taken up this topic, because many critics of Web 2.0 and the internet have based their criticism on Habermasian insights about the public sphere and mass communication.

Thanks to John Buschman for sharing this item with the PLG list…