Dismantling the Online Sphere – Information-filters as Organizers of Public Vision

Resumé

Strands of research within Internet studies and the social sciences have over the last decade analyzed and discussed the characteristics of the Internet as a public sphere. These studies have differed in their final evaluations but many of them have shared the approach of talking about an ‘online public sphere’ that can be compared to its offine counterpart. This paper challenges this divide by pointing out differences in the way Wikipedia.com and Google.co.uk each demarcated the controversy about synthetic biology from January to June 2011. It is argued that differences in the philosophy of information-filtering and the network of actors that influence the final demarcations is the central divide to look at when posing questions about the mediation of controversies and the paper introduces the concept of ‘web-visions’ as an alternative to taking about an ‘online public sphere’. Web-visions are operationalized as the hyperlink-networks a given information-filter gives its user access to and it is emphazised how these visions are shaped by human as well as non-human actors. The analysis shows how Google.co.uk provides more fluid visions than Wikipedia as well as how this fluidity is correlated with the publication of a report from the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The analysis furthermore provides the basis for discussing the relevance of looking at ‘web- visions’ when trying to understand controversies and their mediation.