The Emergence of the Global Public Sphere

With the advancement of globalization and the spread of the communication tools offered by the web, in the last years the interconnection between subjects has grown, blurring the traditional Twentieth century borders inside States (class differences) and outside (between subjects coming from different nations and different cultures). This new historical phase has led some scholars to speak of the affirmation of a global civil society, or of a global public sphere to describe the elevated level of interconnection and a certain degree of cultural homogenization typical of the contemporary world . In the ongoing international debate, many scholars focus on the role that the Internet is playing for the creation of a global public sphere. In this article, instead, I will try to explain how different cultures come into contact not so much in a global public sphere, but rather thanks to the emergence of a global emotional public sphere, and how this, in turn, may strongly contribute to the detonation of democratic insurgences in different areas of the world. Before introducing the category of emotional public sphere, I must briefly introduce the category of public sphere to underline similarity and differences.