There are numerous theories discussing the public sphere, civic engagement, community, and Twitter. These topics are relevant to my research on Twitter and civic engagement in the Hamilton context because Twitter's communication model may offer a new Internet-based public sphere . Civic engagement on Twitter also supports the growth of new communities online. Some authors suggest, however, that all of these notions are simply idealistic beliefs that cannot be fully realized while a digital divide persists. Investigating these themes individually is a necessary first step to be able to make connections between them and form proper hypothesis on the topics. This literature review will focus on Twitter and how it relates to scholarship on the public sphere, community, civic engagement, and the digital divide.
Twitter's mission statement is "to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers." While the original intent of Twitter was to communicate with friends, family, and coworkers [5], the mission statement seems to suggest a slant towards supporting the public sphere and democracy. Clay Shirky, suggests that Twitter acts as a host for a networked public sphere [18], a notion supported by other researchers [10] [14].
Habermas defines the public sphere as a place where "private people come together as a public...to engage... in a debate over the general rules governing relations" [10]. One of the biggest factors for Twitter's ability to maintain this public sphere—allowing people to come together as a public—is the fact that it is free to individual users [18] [12], although detractors would argue that the cost of Internet access is negated when referencing Twitter as "free".
The public sphere is a place to debate politics, and according to a 2013 PEW Internet survey on Civic Engagement in the Digital Age, "39% of American adults took part in some sort of political activity in the context of a social networking site such as Facebook or Twitter" [20]. The concern surrounding Twitter politics, however, is that, if an individual only follows those with similar interests, s/he may only receive information that reinforces previous beliefs [4]. Users do interact with those who share different political ideology, but they rarely share (retweet) that information to their followers [4], making politics on Twitter extremely partisan [4].
One of the tenets of Habermas's concept of the public sphere is that the public can discuss and debate politics as equals, without concern of prejudice. A common belief about Twitter, and the Internet in general, is that it democratizes the online population. On Twitter, users can avoid the disclosure of their age, race, or gender [10] [16] [3]. These physical and social cues can be used to reinforce power and imply authority, leading to unequal communication between people if revealed [19]. The anonymity afforded by Twitter democratizes the playing field for Twitter users to engage as an equal within the public sphere and politics [14]. Online anonymity can be a drawback, however. Critics like Sherry Turkle argue that while nobody knows you are a dog (to paraphrase the infamous New Yorker cartoon), "so much posturing, "gender-switching" and faking of identities can take place that it is extremely difficult for any real relationship to be created and maintained" [25]. Additionally, online anonymity gives users the ability to "engage in verbal combat" [10], often referred to as flaming or trolling [14] [15].
Regardless of whether Twitter can be understood as a Habermasian public sphere, users engaged in politics on Twitter come together because of a shared interest, which has community building potential [2].
Critics of the idea that communities can exist online through Twitter argue that community needs "strong ties"—or strong friendships—to exist, and that strong ties are scarce in online social networks [6] [9] [11]. It may be true that there is an excess of weak ties on Twitter, but as Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia point out: "communities do not have to be solid groups of densely-knit neighbours but could also exist as social networks of kin, friends, and workmates who do not necessarily live in the same neighorhoods" [24]. Communities are made up of strong and weak ties; perhaps the abundance of weak ties is merely an issue of scale. David Smith supports this argument, suggesting that online social networks, such as Twitter, are "broad [weak ties] as well as deep [strong ties]" [21].
Communicating through Twitter takes time. Critics feel that the time spent online negatively impacts face-to-face interactions with friends and family, suggesting that there is a time tradeoff amounting to an exponential loss of real world interaction for every minute spent online [23] [17]. Detractors further claim that the time spent online leaves the user "alone" and encourages depression and loneliness [23] [17]. Several studies, however, have found that Internet users have as much real world contact as non-users and that the time spent online has no impact on these interactions [23]. Moreover, research has revealed that Internet users have more friendships/strong ties than non-users [23] [13] [7] and that “long-term Internet usage is associated with more, not less, frequent sociability" [25]. Not only are Internet users more socially connected than non-users, but there is no evidence of alienation or depression related to Internet usage [23]. Twitter, then, can be seen as a tool to facilitate and compliment these face-to-face interactions [22].
A concern regarding civic engagement on Twitter is the lack of representation of lower income families and racialized minorities [25]. This imbalance of demographic representation is often referred to as the "digital divide". Critics fear that only the elite have access to this new communication medium, leaving lower-income citizens out of the debate.
The digital divide is shrinking [25], but until it disappears completely there is concern that the lack of access by certain demographics hinders democratic participation, leaving the floodgates open for "'net-savvy' special interest communities who could pursue their own agenda at the cost of the public commonweal" [25]. A 2013 PEW Internet survey states that the digital divide is not the drastic concern that critics make it out to be, indicating that "income related differences are more modest [online]" and that "[online] political participation is more balanced between lower and higher income Americans" [20]. Further, "those at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum are generally less involved with the day-to-day outreach, chatter, and discussion around political issues — regardless of whether those discussions take place in physical or digital spaces" [20].
Some critics argue that Twitter users involved in civic engagement are not truly participating; being a Facebook fan or Tweeting about a cause only shows awareness and not action [1]. This is often referred to as "slacktivism" and is seen as an insufficient approach to civic engagement. Conceding the fact that slacktivism is real, this awareness of the cause greatly increases the potential for real engagement and participation [8], giving these part-time activists more agency on how they contribute to the cause [16] [3].
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