1 Introduction: Why investigate the potential of public discussions in media -- PART I Public discussion in media in the 21st century -- 2 The concept of public discussions in media -- 3 The digital media blurring the borders of public discussion -- 4 Public discussion in media as a democratic space characterized by plurality -- PART II The first-person perspective: Others appearing in public discussions in media -- 5 The experience of public discussions in media as a political-phenomenological research object -- 6 The media object appearing as others -- 7 The homeworld and the alienworld: Strangers in the same public media sphere -- 8 Historicity of affective experience: Contents catching our attention and influencing us PART III Public discussions in media as a potential for learning and dialogue -- 9 Learning through media-based public discussions: Experience versus reality -- 10 Public discussion in media as a complex of risks and possibilities -- 11 Dialogue instead of facts: Let the truth be -- 12 Conclusion: What this means for democracy.

A friend recommended an interesting news article to you that changed your view on the topic. Later, you find out that the information in the article was false. Did you learn something, even though the information was not correct? From the subjective perspective at that moment, the answer is “yes,” but from the objective perspective, you were led false. “The Potential of Public Discussion in Media: Philosophy of Democracy and Misinformation,” takes up two perspectives on public discussions in media: the outsider’s third-person perspective and the first-person perspective of the engaged subject. By investigating public discussion in media through both perspectives, public discussion appears simultaneously both crucial and risky for democracy. The book uses phenomenology to frame the problematic of contemporary public discussions in media, which emphasizes the subjective experience of gaining new information. Minna-Kerttu Kekki is a researcher at the University of Helsinki Center of Excellence in European Studies. She has had previous appointments at the University of Oulu (Finland) and the University of Sussex (UK). .