My Public Sphere

In my opinions, I would say I have two different public spheres. The first being a place where I can discuss current issues and ideology and get opinions back; a sort of back and forth conversation. This would be in a face-to-face sphere that is my group of friends. I find online platforms for discussion very hard to convey your side of things and difficult to get a flowing conversation, therefore, I would rather talk to people in person about political, economic or social issues (somehow we always end up at social. Whoops!) The other public sphere that appeals to me is a place where I can view what is currently being spoken about and stay up to date with affairs and others comments on them. This place being Snapchat. I understand most people don’t really see Snapchat as an informative place, however you couldn’t be more wrong. Snapchat features many news articles from all different publications, which are constantly updated every 24 hours. Also, when people post on their stories, most of the time they are making fun of a current issue in the world, alluding to their stand on the matter. Having two public spheres, one personally based and the other media based, makes me feel like a well-balanced person and provides me with platforms to express my opinion.

Most of the issues that arise in my first public sphere, inclusive of friends close to me and exclusive of the general public, are things such as Donald Trump and how ridiculous everything he does is, how house prices are rising and we will probably all live at home until we are 50, what holidays are coming up for everyone’s different culture and we also seem to finish with a little bit of gossip – that can be counted as social issues right?? We discuss things that are not only relevant to us, but also things that we think are unfair, outrageous or that we have different stands on.

In my Snapchat sphere, which includes the people I have added on snapchtat as well as strangers who make their stories public, articles are more suited to public demand. There are a lot of social issues discussed in publications such as Cosmopolitan, Buzzfeed and People, such as updates on Kylie Jenner’s baby, Stormi, and also many reasons why you’re single. Other news involves humanitarian issues and nature alerts by National Geographic and well as self-defence strategies in Brawler and technological and security updates from Mashable.
While many issues come in the form of informative articles, people’s snap stories express a snippet of what the population is talking about in self made memes. These include attacking fashion with phrases such as “What are those”, as well as having digs at the Australian Government, in particular Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce. In this public sphere, any matter can pop up and it is not really regulated.

The media plays roles in both these public spheres. Most of the things discussed amongst my friends are issues we have seen been advertised on a media platform such as Facebook or the News. We are then able to have our own voices in our own face-to-face circle. Whereas media influence in my second domain is quite straightforward, given that it is a media platform itself.
With two public spheres I always feel like my voice is heard and enjoy seeing different perspectives on issues relating to politics, the economy, culture and society.