Justice in the Post-public Sphere: The New Challenge for Global Communication Governance

The multi-headed hydra of digital capitalism has engulfed the digital public sphere, subordinating social interaction to the economy of algorithmic surveillance and expelling all that is irrelevant to profit. The traditional liberal paradigm of communications governance has proven inadequate in addressing this erosion. The right to communicate is not merely a negative liberty concerned with removing obstacles to free expression, but also, equally, the positive liberty of access and participation in digital agoras. Using Amartya Sen’s conception of justice, this essay explores a roadmap for a global, supra-liberal communicative constitutionalism appropriate to this conjuncture. It elucidates three ground norms: free expression as a positive liberty, the Internet as a global public infrastructure and a people-centred multilateral institutional framework for digital justice.