Social Media and the Public Sphere. An Interview with John B. Thompson

Abstract

Dr. John Brookshire Thompson, who is of North American origin but currently works at the Uni­versity of Cambridge, is a sociologist interested in understanding the role of the mass media in the de­velopment of modern society and culture. His theo­retical expositions –especially those concentrated in his book The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media (Polity Press, 1995)– are a constant ref­erence in the productions of European scholars who theorizing around the concept of mediatization. In the present interview, the first reflections on trans­formations in the public sphere were developed by Thompson in the mid-1990s, are revisited under the light of a media ecosystem different in part.

Keywords

• modern culture
• mediatization
• public sphere