The Homeworld and the Alienworld: Strangers in the Same Public Media Sphere

This chapter develops an analysis of how others appear to “me” in terms of publicness. I apply the phenomenological concepts of the homeworld and the alienworld to refer to the lifeworld the subject experiences as familiar and normal and to that part of the world the subject is aware of but perceives as something unfamiliar and alien. I argue that, in media-based public discussion, these two “worlds” appear next to each other and even intermingled and confused. At the end of the chapter, I speculate on how the erasure of the line between the familiar and the foreign in public discussions in media may provoke confusion, misunderstandings, and stereotyping others.