Transmedial Discourses. New Forms of Public Spheres?

Public discourses in general are determined by media, since they are not only distributed through media, but also constituted by them. Public discourses are typically conceptualized as part of mass media. With the so called social web, new discursive practices are constituted, which make it possible for different groups of users to participate in public discourses. Debates that are discussed in the mass media can cause responses in segmented public spheres of the World Wide Web. Vice versa, content that is produced in blogs, wikis or social networks can become part of news coverage in the mass media. In addition to the public of mass media, some authors argue for the existence of a ‘personal public’ constituted by the World Wide Web. In the personal public sphere, actors use different rules of production and distribution compared to the public sphere of analog offline media. Both forms of public sphere, however, are connected with one another. It is therefore reasonable to describe today’s public discourses as transmedial discourses. The concept of transmedia requires a change of perspective from single media and their meanings for social processes, to communicative networks consisting in different media in convergent, networked arrangements. It would be unreasonable to assume that discourses are only constituted through the web; this would not correspond to media practices in everyday life and would give the impression that there is a gap between online and offline media practices. I narrow my focus to online discourse as a way to investigate more thoroughly a highly important part of media practices. In my paper I place my focus on digital network media, first and foremost on the Internet, which can be characterized as a central point of reference for media convergence. I would discuss if and how public spheres are changing through the Internet.