Datafication of Public Opinion and the Public Sphere

“Slavko Splichal’s book is an excellent, outstanding, highly important and extremely topical analysis of how datafication has colonised publicness, public opinion, and the public sphere. This work is a must-read for everyone who cares about democracy and is interested in how we can save democracy and democratic communication(s) from the threats they face today.”—Professor Christian Fuchs, author of “Social Media: A Critical Introduction” and “Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory.”

“Slavko Splichal’s book is based on a historical perspective, Splichal provides a brilliant analysis of the impact of technological advances (polling, data and opinion mining, algorithms) on publicness combined with an urgent call for more complex and critical empirical research. Thought-provoking in its best sense.” —Professor Dr. Christina Holtz-Bacha, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität School of Business, Economics and Society, Nüremberg.

“Slavko Splichal writes with impressive intellectual depth, raising critical questions about what he describes as the datafication of the public sphere. The great value of this book is its sensitivity to long-term historical trends that have prevented the public from realising its democratic potential.”—Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds, UK.

Though the title might imply an empirical examination of data mining today, Splichal's book is more of an intellectual history of the concepts of “publicness” and “public sphere." He examines how scholars use these terms and considers how they apply to media and political communication now. Splichal (communications and public opinion, Univ. of Ljubljana, Slovenia) also touches on journalism and its current crisis, including citizens’ loss of trust in it and journalism's own loss of direction. One fundamental problem Splichal addresses is how publicness or public opinion can be used to democratically mediate between citizens and the government. He raises important points about the rise of survey research, after which opinions expressed privately were paradoxically labeled public opinion. Splichal is concerned about private control and the lack of true publicness in the means of public communication. It would be interesting to see more discussion of how much private interests control the knowledge gained through data mining. Thought provoking but difficult to parse.— J. Heyrman, Berea College