PSYCHOPOLITICS, EMOTIONAL GOVERNANCE, AND THE MAKING OF PUBLIC OPINION

It is imperative that, when we step into social media, we pause to consider what is present there and how it shapes our understanding of where we stand today, in other words, what social media reveals about contemporary life.

- By Dr Manoj Jinadasa

I would like to immerse myself in the idea of how social media can act as a mirror reflecting our own lives.

For example, why do I constantly share my ideas and writings on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and other regionally established social media platforms? Why am I so enthusiastic about telling others who I am, or what compels me to write and publish my daily or contemporary thoughts on these platforms? Equally, we may ask: does social media itself trigger us to express more about the immediate or contemporary scenarios of our daily encounters? This question forms the core of my present investigation.

This article focuses on three interrelated theoretical perspectives: public sphere theory, networked and affective publics, and psychopolitics and digital subjectivity. Together, these provide a critical lens through which to analyse how social media reshapes self-expression, public opinion, and the psychological dimensions of digital citizenship.

The Public Sphere and Digital Opinion

The starting point is Jürgen Habermas's concept of the public sphere, defined as "the sphere of private people come together as a public" through rational-critical debate (Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 1989, p. 27). In traditional media, this sphere was mediated by political and economic elites, producing a narrowly controlled form of public opinion. Social media, however, complicates this model. As Nancy Fraser argues, publics today are not singular but "contested arenas in which groups with unequal power attempt to constitute competing interpretations of social life" (Fraser, Rethinking the Public Sphere, 1990, p. 62). Thus, social media may be understood as a new form of virtual public sphere, where opinion circulates less through reasoned deliberation and more through affect, speed, and networked connectivity.

Networked and Affective Publics