It may seem like private space and public space are very different elements, but with the technological advances we have now, this separation becomes blurry. Everyone and their mother has some form of social media now-a-days. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, etc., are all public domains with personal accounts. These personal accounts are very rarely private, however, and every post can be seen world wide. Tweets can be accessed from every person with an account, and Facebook statuses can spread like wild fire if liked/shared by enough people. When this happens, private opinions are suddenly brought into the public sphere. It is interesting to me that we think we have private statuses with our own private opinions among friends, but a person we randomly went to middle school with can come out of the woodwork and blast their own opinion about your thoughts over a simple comment. It's actually quite fascinating that we live in a world so infatuated with the idea of having your own platform to share private thoughts, but it ends up being shared and connected in ways that we can't imagine. The idea of public disclosure gives people an even playing field, but with the technology we have today, I feel like this sense of transparency and disclosure can be lost.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Chapter 6 Public Discourse Ethics
From what I learned in this chapter, public discourse is protecting the good of private and public space. Private space in communication is information or opinions shared between two people or a smaller group of people. Public space, on the other hand, is the information shared among a large group or community. According to the text, "Public discourse ethics requires public accountability, providing a map, or trail, a set of clear steps in the decision making...(102)." Essentially, public information is very clearly processed and shared. Along with this is the notion of public decision making, and the idea that every person should be allowed to have an opinion that is processed in the public domain.
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Certainly the boundaries between the public and private spheres become ambiguous with the development, especially the use of social media platforms. For example, when a personal issue becomes increasingly known by people, no matter people known and unknown, personal decision can be regarded as a public issue. Though with many people's witness might sound cool, we should also take personal private into consideration.
ReplyDeleteThe most impressive case for me is the experience of Jason Russel as he successfully published his firm for Invisible Children Organization in 2012. Tough his film about making Joseph Kony famous was great successful, he was criticized by famous critics for his actions, and some people even called him as a hilarious person to attack him. All these pressure made him bear giant psychological burden, and finally he was sick, both mentally and physically. From my perspective, Jason Russel simply wanted to help people as he saw in Uganda and called for help from the government. Finally, his personal action received great success and many criticism for his film aroused the public's attention, and all these severe criticism made him feel bad and sick. There may not have enough standard or protections for individuals post their personal and private pieces of life to the public platform, especially when these private posts becomes famous and great welcomed among the public, their lifestyle may also become a public issue, their personal information are easily to be revealed and their lives might be disrupted.