The Coloniality of Globality and Media: The Latest Structural Transformations of the Global Public Spheres

This chapter offers a sketch of what the author calls the “mestizo/decolonial” version of theorizing globalization. The argument is that if we live in a globalized world, it is because it was also colonized, that is, colonization is one of the strongest and oldest forces of globalization. Then, the chapter considers the role of what Jürgen Habermas called the bourgeois category of the “public sphere” in the age of globalization(s). Two questions are key: How does the concept of the “public sphere” relate to globalization? If we can talk about a world society that has been partly created by processes of globalization, can we also talk about the rise of global public spheres? In this context, a second question is raised: in the putative age of world public spheres, can we also continue to talk about the rational and rationalizing dimension of the public sphere as the social/political/cultural/economic sphere in which something like “public opinion” can, could, should be wanted or had? The final section offers an analysis of the “newer or latest structural transformations” of the public sphere by focusing on the effects of the rise of “social media” and new “communication technologies” and their effects on the political.