Although the public sphere never included everyone, and by itself did not determine the outcome of all parliamentary actions, it contributed to the spirit of dissent found in a healthy representative democracy. Many of these public spaces remain, but they are no longer centers for political discussion and action. They have largely been replaced by television and other forms of media - forms that arguably isolate citizens from one another rather than bring them together. These attributes will powerfully affect the politics that emerge in our digital era. At its core, and we can debate much of this assertion and many of the assumptions, traditionally, a person's identity is defined by contact.
Identity is rooted in the physical body.
This stability forces individuals to be accountable for their positions and allows trust to be built up between people. It also limits discourse as we are limited by socially derived norms, rules and practices that privilege some and deny voice to others. The Internet, however, allows individuals to define their own identities and change them at will. A person might be an aging white male hippie one day, a teenage girl the next, an aboriginal activist a third. Life on the Screen as Shirley Turkle refers to this sociological reality is not consonant with forming a stable political community, as we have known it.