Counterpublicness and Hybrid Tactics across Physical and Mediated Spaces

Mette Bengtsson, Anna Schjøtt

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Abstract

This chapter explores citizens’ attempts to gather as publics across physical as well as new and old mediated spaces in an endeavour to make themselves count in today’s datafied, hybrid media system. Processes of public formation have fundamentally changed due to digitalization and datafication, and we explore these changes through a case study of COVID-19 sceptics in Denmark as a paradigmatic case of counterpublicness. We approach the case through an explorative framework for the understanding of public formation processes that focuses on concrete discursive manifestations while also recognizing how publicity and the understanding of different media logics are essential for being recognized as legitimate actors. In the chapter, we present a typology of tactics where we distinguish between mobilization tactics, counter-tactics and publicity tactics. Furthermore, we illustrate how overarching datafied hybrid quantification logics highly drives these tactics. Finally, we discuss the importance of following processes of public formation and datafication across contexts to fully grasp how constraints in one space might induce a shift to another and, therefore, how these logics and tactics flow between spaces.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDatapublics : The Constructions of Publics in Datafied Democracies
EditorsJannie Møller Hartley, Jannick Kirk Sørensen, David Mathieu
Number of pages23
PublisherBristol University Press
Publication date2023
Pages49-71
Chapter3
ISBN (Print)9781529228625
ISBN (Electronic)9781529228632
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

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