Reason for the Digital Age: Developing Habermasean Tools for Political Moderation in the Post-Truth Era

Abstract

This thesis aims to introduce a novel approach to the problems of fakenews, political polarization and social media platforms with respect to the ongoing state of the American political discourse through the work of Jürgen Habermas. Habermas’ work provides unique insight into the problems of communication and action coordination which are of utmost relevance to this discussion. This paper argues that social media platforms are formulated around a model which is highly vulnerable to the influences of fakenews content, and therefore instrumental reason. Furthermore, this thesis continues on to argue that this reliance on instrumental reason is not an intrinsic feature of these networks, but rather, that a platform could indeed be designed which embraces communicative action as its primary avenue of social cooperation. In so, the problem of polarization within the American political discourse might be ameliorated through the exercise of communicative rationality if provided a sufficiently rich argumentative space. This thesis offers in first place, a Habermasean critique of the inner workings of social media platforms with respect to their vulnerability to instrumental reason. Thereafter, continues on to articulate specific features which would be of greatest impact with respect to the cultivation of communicative rationality on these networks.