1. Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 5 MED4105
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Gemma Harris
The key point of the author in week five’s reading is that the internet and public sphere is
more considered than ever in current society. Those combined‘the online public sphere’ is
considered in relation to political communication.
An important point is the development of new technologies, such as the expanding internet,
causing media organisations to converge. A theory by Blumler and Gurevitch states
apparent themes of this “changes in the formats of media output, the blurring and
hybridization of genres, and the erosion of distinction between journalism and
nonjournalism.” (Dahlgren, 2005, p. 150). This relates to a dimension discussed in this
week’s lecture: the structural dimension; the change in media output has changed the
structure of society. The theory implies the online public sphere is impacting on the political
output of mass media due to changes in the format causing it to be more widely accessible
creating moreindividual dominantideologies. This is changing the structure of society; the
power then lies within different political people to tradition.This is the process of
destabilisation of political communication.
A real exampleis bypolitical ‘blogger’, Will Straw; he communicates with the online public
through an internet blog. Anyone has access to write political views using blogs so it’s hard
to distinguish what’s journalism and what’s nonjournalism. This relates to the theme of
blurring due to technological developments.(the Guardian, 2010)
However, it’s also argued that public involvement with political communication is essential
and technology developments are the way to enforce this.
This quality of the properly functioning public sphere can be defined as the ability of
citizens, through the media apparatus furnished by a society’s given state of
technology, to contribute to and participate in politics: communicating vertically, via

2. Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 5 MED4105
2 | P a g e
Gemma Harris
the institutions of the media to those of the government and the state, as well as
horizontally to other members of the media audience.
Loon&MyiLibrary, 2008, p. 105
This incorporates the structural dimension but in a more positive light suggesting this
structure of society, the public sphere interacting with politics due to technology, is what’s
needed for a “properly functioning” society.
New investigation could be “How has the development of the internet’s role made
thedistinguish abilitybetween politics within journalism, PR and the public sphere less
identifiable?”A suitable methodology would be an ethnography of the internet,its portrayal
of political communication and the public sphere’s involvement with this.
In conclusion, the knowledge I gained is that the internet has changed political media
output, their forms, the way audiences are involved with it and the structure of the public
sphere but in both positive and negative approaches.

3. Student no: s13161812 Reflective Response to Reading – Week 5 MED4105
3 | P a g e
Gemma Harris
Bibliography:
Dahlgren, P. 2005. The Internet, public spheres, and political communication: Dispersion and
deliberation. Political communication, 22 (2), p. 150.
Loon, J. V. &MyiLibrary. 2008. Media technology. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
the Guardian. 2010. Political blogs. [online] Available at:
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/mar/21/10-best-political-blogs
[Accessed: 6 Mar 2014].