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于政治合法性至关重要。根据我们继承自古希腊的模式，公共领域是人们讨论政治问题、思想和政策建议并获得影响政治行动的机会的社会空间。在20世纪的大型民主国家中，公共领域不再与物理空间(Agora)联系在一起；相反，它主要由印刷媒体、广播和电视中的辩论构成。如今，随着新闻和观点在社交媒体上的日益共享，旧媒体的消亡或适应，一个新的公共领域正在被遗忘。在这个新的公共领域中，“调查记者”或“新闻主播”等传统角色已经失去了以前的意义。取而代之的是，一条新闻或评论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”--社交媒体平台及其算法以及旧媒体编辑--改变了传统的包容和排斥模式。那些不会给时报写信的人可以与同行们一起发出自己的声音(就像#BlackLivesMatter和#MeToo运动一样)。与此同时，“假新闻”(例如，气候变化怀疑论者，反奥巴马的“出生地”阴谋论)获得了更广泛的追随者，个性化的在线内容引发了社会群体的两极分化。我们的项目旨在解决的问题是，新兴的新公共领域没有受到旧法律法规的有效管理，我们对新公共领域角色--“推特用户”、“平台提供者”--的道德理解还不够成熟。我们将对适用于管理公共领域并将其概念化的三项公正性原则进行哲学探索，这些原则可能支撑英国未来的媒体政策框架：1.认知价值原则：公共领域应将鼓励获取和分享知识、过滤错误信念、促进负责任地接触证据和事实的做法制度化。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参与，共同构成一个自我管理的“公共”。隐私原则：公共领域应该为隐私提供适当的空间。首要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。似乎，基于自由自治原则的言论自由权利，即使是捐款也必须受到保护(例如)。气候怀疑论“、”假新闻“)违反了认知价值原则，因为它们是公然错误的或未能与现有证据接触。同样，认知价值原则似乎证明，压制没有通过专业知识传播的贡献是合理的(从而边缘化了比仇恨言论或“极端主义”更多的观点)，或者为公布重要的侵犯隐私的真相(例如，关于政客家庭的真相)提供了正当理由。我们研究了这些常见冲突的新形式。我们的第二个首要目标是通过为新媒体时代的政策制定者、公民社会和公民制定建议，使我们的哲学理解具有可操作性，如果遵循这些建议，将提供一个合法化的媒体政策框架。例如，我们将探索YouTube、Twitter和Facebook监管规范的好处和成本，公共服务在线媒体平台与旧式公共服务广播的案例，以及可以定义新的职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性，迫切需要更好地理解一个构成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.