Social Media as a Public Sphere? Politics on Social Media

Social media platforms are popular sites, attracting millions of users who connect digitally. This has prompted some to argue that social media has promoted the return of Habermas's ([1989] 1991) public sphere. We use data from in-depth interviews with Millennials and Generation Xers to refute this claim. Specifically, our results suggest that respondents do not engage in communicative action typical of the public sphere because they avoid political discourse online. Three factors influence this: (1) fear of online harassment and workplace surveillance; (2) engagement only with politically similar others; and (3) characterization of social media as a place for "happy" interactions. In addition, we find that these three factors interrelate, often sequentially, and we explore similarities and minor differences between Millennials and Generation Xers regarding each factor.