Abstract:
Habermas (1989) proposes a ‘public sphere’, a setting where people talk freely on the
public issues. In his early works, Habermas was rather pessimistic about the provision of
the public sphere; however, soon after the introduction of the Internet as an ultimately
decentralized medium, in his later work, Habermas (1996) seems more optimistic about
the Internet as the provider of the ‘public sphere’. The Internet which is particularly
popular among the young people, not only provides a medium that is cheap and easily
accessible but also provides incredible amount of information on the topic of almost any
interest and means for communication. It also contributes to the democratic discussions
in the society. The Internet provides a medium according to which neither gender, nor
age or race is important. Since it does not belong to anybody, it provides a public sphere
in which political communication can be held democratically. This paper sets out to
explore whether, despite the wide of use of the Internet, tertiary students are aware of the
opportunities for democratic communication it provides. The present study aims at
exploring the attitudes of the students studying in the Faculties of Engineering and
Communication and Media Studies of the Eastern Mediterranean University in the
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, in the 2003-2004 academic year, to the Internet as
the provider of information, a medium for expressing opinions and conversation on the
public issues. Data is collected through a questionnaire comprising both structured
questions and questions designed according to the five-point Likert scale. The results
suggest that, the attitudes of the students studying both hard and soicial sciences do not
show significant difference stressing the commonality of the Internet for all the
academicians.
