Datafication of Public Opinion and the Public Sphere: How Extraction Replaced Expression of Opinion

(Hardback)

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The book, anchored in stimulating debates about the Enlightenment ideas of publicness, analyses historical changes in the core phenomena of publicness: possibilities, conditions and obstacles to developing a public sphere in which the public reflexively creates, articulates and expresses public opinion. It is focused on the historical transformation from public use of reason through the identification of public opinion in opinion polls to contemporary opinion mining, in which the Enlightenment idea of public expression of opinion has been displaced by the technology of extracting opinions. It heralds a new critical impetus in theory and research of publicness at a time when critical social thought is sharply criticising and even abandoning the notion of the public sphere, much like the notion of public opinion decades ago, due to its predominantly administrative use.

Reviews

Slavko Splichals book is an excellent, outstanding, highly important andextremely topical analysis of how datafication has colonised publicness, public opinion, and the public sphere. This work is a must-read for everyone who cares about democracy and is interested in how we can save democracy and democratic communication(s) from the threats they face today. Professor Christian Fuchs, author of Social Media: A Critical Introduction and Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory.

Slavko Splichals book is based on a historical perspective, Splichal provides a brilliant analysis of the impact of technological advances (polling, data and opinion mining, algorithms) on publicness combined with an urgent call for more complex and critical empirical research. Thought-provoking in its best sense. Professor Dr. Christina Holtz-Bacha, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt School of Business, Economics and Society, Nremberg.

Slavko Splichal writes with impressive intellectual depth, raising critical questions about what he describes as the datafication of the public sphere. The great value of this book is its sensitivity to long-term historical trends that have prevented the public from realising its democratic potential. Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds, UK.

Author Bio

Slavko Splichal is Professor of Communication and Public Opinion at the University of Ljubljanas Faculty of Social Sciences, fellow of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and member of Academia Europaea. He is founder and director of the European Institute for Communication and Culture and editor of its journal Javnost The Public.