When talking about social changes in the wake of the digital media revolution the concept of “networked publics” (see Kazys  Varnelis (ed), “Networked Publics” MIT Press 2008) is useful and interesting. If there is such a thing as a global network society, it would be reasonable to assume that the public sphere is in some way conditioned by networked information and communication technologies (NICT). Mizuko Ito in the Introduction to the collection of essays on topics such as place, culture, politics, and media, summarizes the affordances of NICT in terms of four “technosocial trends;” 1) the accessibility to digital tools and networks; 2) many-to-many and peer-to-peer forms of distribution; 3) the creation of value at the edges of the network; and 4) aggregation of culture and information.  These trends produce “networked publics,” that is “a linked set of social, cultural, and technological developments” that replace the public sphere of traditional mass media societies; a public sphere  that was, after all, nothing more than an audience of consumers, a silent majority, or the anonymous masses.

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