Norms for the New Public Sphere: Institutionalising Respect for Truth, Self-Government, and Privacy

一个结构良好的公共领域对政治合法性至关重要。根据我们从古希腊继承的模式，公共领域是一个社会空间，人们在其中讨论政治问题、思想和政策建议，并有机会影响政治行动。在20世纪的大型民主国家中，公共领域不再与物理空间（集市）联系在一起；相反，它主要由印刷媒体、广播和电视上的辩论组成。今天，随着新闻和观点越来越多地在社交媒体上分享，旧媒体要么枯萎，要么适应，一个新的公共领域正在形成。在这个新的公共领域，像“调查记者”或“新闻主播”这样的传统角色已经失去了它们以前的意义。在他们看来，新闻或观点被分享的频率和速度已经成为影响其受到关注的关键因素。新的“看门人”——社交媒体平台和它们的算法以及旧媒体编辑——已经改变了传统的包容和排斥模式。那些本来不会给时报写信的人，现在可以和同龄人一起发出自己的声音（比如#黑人的生命很重要（#BlackLivesMatter）和#MeToo运动）。与此同时，“假新闻”（如气候变化怀疑论者、反奥巴马的“出生地怀疑论”阴谋论）获得了更广泛的追随者，个性化的在线内容使社会群体两极分化。我们的项目旨在解决的问题是，新兴的新公共领域受到旧法律法规的无效管理，以及我们对新公共领域角色（“twitter用户”、“平台提供者”）的道德理解尚不完善。我们将从哲学的角度探讨适用于管理和概念化公共领域的三个辩护原则，这些原则可以支撑英国未来的媒体政策框架：1。认知价值原则：公共领域应该使实践制度化，鼓励知识的获取和分享，过滤错误的信念，促进对证据和事实的负责任的参与。自由自治原则：公共领域应尊重所有参与者的自由，并应使他们能够平等地参与，共同构成一个自我管理的“公共”。隐私原则：公共领域应有适当的隐私空间。第一个总体目标是提高对这些原则的哲学理解，以及它们如何共同塑造一个治理良好的新公共领域。基于自由自治原则的言论自由权似乎必须受到保护，即使是违反认识论价值原则的贡献（例如“气候怀疑主义”、“假新闻”），因为它们明显是错误的或未能与现有证据相结合。同样，似乎认知价值原则证明了沉默没有通过专业知识引导的贡献（从而使更多的观点边缘化，而不是仇恨言论或“极端主义”），或者证明了公开重要的侵犯隐私的真相（例如关于政治家的家庭）是正当的。我们研究这些熟悉的冲突的新形式。我们的第二个总体目标是通过为新媒体时代的政策制定者、公民社会和公民提出建议，将我们的哲学理解付诸实践，如果这些建议得到遵循，将提供一个合法的媒体政策框架。例如，我们将探讨YouTube、Twitter和Facebook监管规范的收益和成本，公共服务在线媒体平台与老式公共服务广播的案例，以及可以定义新的专业或公民角色的理想。鉴于新兴的新公共领域与旧的媒体政策和概念之间缺乏契合，迫切需要更好地理解一个结构良好的新公共领域应该是什么样子。

A well-constituted public sphere is essential for political legitimacy. According to our model inherited from Ancient Greece, the public sphere is a social space in which people discuss political problems, ideas, and policy proposals, and get an opportunity to influence political action. In the large democracies of the 20th century, the public sphere was no longer associated with a physical space (an agora); instead, it was primarily constituted by debates in print media, the radio, and television. Today, as news and opinions are increasingly shared on social media and the old media wither or adapt, a new public sphere is being forged.In this new public sphere, traditional roles like 'investigative journalist' or 'news anchor' have lost their former significance. In their place, how often and how quickly a news item or opinion piece is shared has become a key factor affecting the attention it receives. New 'gatekeepers' - social media platforms and their algorithms alongside old-media editors - have altered traditional patterns of inclusion and exclusion. People who would not have sent a letter to The Times can make their voices heard in concert with peers (as in the #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo campaigns). At the same time 'fake news' (e.g. climate change sceptics, the anti-Obama 'birther' conspiracy theory) gains a wider following, and personalised online content polarises social groups.The problems our project aims to address are that the emergent new public sphere is ineffectively governed by older laws and regulations, and that our moral understanding of new public sphere roles - 'twitter user', 'platform provider' - is under-developed. We will engage in philosophical exploration of three justificatory principles appropriate for governing and conceptualising the public sphere, principles that could underpin a future media policy framework for the UK:1. Epistemic value principle: the public sphere should institutionalise practices that encourage the acquisition and sharing of knowledge, that filter false beliefs, and that foster responsible engagement with evidence and facts.2. Liberal self-government principle: the public sphere should respect the liberty of all participants, and should enable them to participate as equals who can together constitute a 'public' that governs itself.3. Privacy principle: the public sphere should secure an appropriate space for privacy.A first overarching aim is to improve philosophical understanding of these principles, and of how they can work together to shape a well-governed new public sphere. It might seem that a right to free expression, grounded on the liberal self-government principle, must be protected even for contributions (e.g.' climate scepticism', 'fake news') that violate the epistemic value principle because they are blatantly false or fail to engage with available evidence. Similarly, it might seem that the epistemic value principle justifies silencing contributions that have not been channelled through expertise (thereby marginalising many more views than hate speech or 'extremism'), or justifies publicising important privacy-violating truths (e.g. about politicians' families). We examine the new forms of these familiar conflicts.Our second overarching aim is to operationalize our philosophical understanding by developing recommendations for policy-makers, civil society and citizens in the new media age that would, if followed, deliver a legitimating media policy framework. We will explore, e.g. the benefits and costs of regulatory norms for YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, the case for public service online media platforms alongside old-style public service broadcasting, and the ideals that can define new professional or citizenship roles. Given the lack of fit between the emerging new public sphere and old media policies and concepts, it is pressing to develop a better understanding of what a well-constituted new public sphere should look like.