Peer-Reviewed Publications

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"Participatory Democracy in the Age of AI: A Habermasian Approach." In Dialectic of Digital Enlightenment: Reclaiming Radical Philosophy for Our Times. Edited by Bhabani Shankar Nayak. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. [download full text]
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(with David B. Ingram) – “Digital Technology and the Public Sphere,” in Re-Imagining Public Space: The Frankfurt School in the 21st Century. Edited by James Glass and Diana Boros. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. [download full text]
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(with Irene Lehrer Sandalow) - “Don’t Sell Them Short: From Understanding Injustice to Activism,” Journal of Jewish Communal Service, Vol. 87, Nos. 1/2, (Winter/Spring 2012).

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Bar-Tura, Asaf. "Between Virtual Reality and the Real: Cyber Subjectivity and Ideology Critique," Humanities and Technology Review, Vol. 30 (Fall 2011).

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Bar-Tura, Asaf. “Economic Policy and World Organization,” Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, (2011) Vol. 10 (1). [download full text and abstract]

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Bar-Tura, Asaf. “The Coffee House as a Public Sphere: Brewing Social Change.” In Coffee and Philosophy, Edited by Parker, Scott F. and Mike Austin. Malden, MA: Wiley Publishing, 2011. [download full text]

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Bar-Tura, Asaf. “Arendt, Habermas and Facebook: Participation and Discourse in Cyber Public Spheres,” Humanities and Technology Review, Vol. 29 (Fall 2010), pp. 1-25.

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Bar-Tura, Asaf. “Wall-to-Wall or Face-to-Face.” In Facebook and Philosophy: What’s on Your Mind?, Edited by Dylan Wittkower. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 2010.

Dissertation

Habermas and Public Reason in the Digital Age: Technology and Deliberative Democracy

 

Abstract

Scholars defending the deliberative model of democracy have focused much of their attention on argumentation and criteria for offering public reasons in deliberative processes, but have paid little attention to the ways in which digital technologies mediate such deliberations. Conversely, critical theorists of technology have emphasized the socially determined nature of technology, but have lacked a theory of democracy through which to normatively assess technologies that mediate public discourse. Through a reworking of Jürgen Habermas’s discourse-based theory of democracy, my research provides a new understanding of the flows of political communication and power in the democratic public sphere and the implications of digital technologies for democratic participation.

Contact: A copy of the full dissertation can be provided upon request.