ABSTRACT
The old dominance of state-structured and territorially bounded public life mediated by radio, television, newspapers, and books is coming to an end. Its hegemony is rapidly being eroded by the development of a multiplicity of networked spaces of communication which are not tied immediately to territory, and which therefore irreversibly outflank and fragment anything formerly resembling a single, spatially integrated public sphere within a nation-state framework. The coffeehouse, town-level meeting, and literary circle, in which early modern public spheres developed, today find their counterparts in a wide variety of local spaces in which citizens enter into disputes about who does and who ought to get what, when, and how. Meso-public spheres are those spaces of controversy about power that encompass millions of people watching, listening, or reading across vast distances. They are mainly coextensive with the nation-state, but they may also extend beyond its boundaries to encompass neighboring audiences.
