The General Theory of Dissipative Publicness

Reconceptualises publicness as a dynamic formation in which discursive energy generates, circulates and dissipates, explaining why contemporary publics emerge, weaken and fail to stabilise under accelerated, data-driven, platform-mediated communication.

The General Theory of Dissipative Publicness offers a comprehensive rethinking of the dynamic discursive process generating publicness, particularly challenged by contemporary conditions of accelerated communication, platform-mediated visibility and fragmented attention. Departing from influential diagnoses that describe publics as fluid, liquid or unstable, Slavko Splichal argues that these metaphors no longer suffice. Contemporary liquefaction, datafication and performativisation of publicness are part of a more fundamental process of dissipation: the dispersal and partial exhaustion of the discursive energies that potentially enable publics to stabilise and exert social force.
The book advances the claim that publicness should not be conceptualised primarily as a normative ideal, an institutionalised public sphere or a collection of communicative arenas. Instead, it is understood as a dynamic, processual phenomenon governed by the generation, circulation, damping and dissipation of discursive energy. Publics come into being when reflexive energy condenses into shared attention, common reference points and collective orientation. They weaken or dissolve when this energy disperses, fragments or is selectively damped.
By shifting the analytical focus from forms of publicness to its internal dynamics, the book moves beyond familiar debates about decline, fragmentation or democratic deficit. It asks instead how publicness reproduces itself through discourse, and why this reproduction increasingly fails to result in durable public forms. Drawing on classical sociological theory (including Tönnies, Tarde and critical traditions) as well as contemporary analyses of media, datafication and performative visibility, the book reconstructs the internal logic of publicness across historical transformations.
In doing so, it synthesises and extends Slavko Splichal’s earlier work on the liquefaction, datafication and performativisation of publicness into a unified theoretical framework. The result is a general theory capable of explaining both the proliferation of public expression and the simultaneous weakening of publics as collective actors.
The stakes of this theory are threefold. Theoretically, it challenges dominant models that presuppose the coherence, stability or recoverability of the public sphere. Empirically, it situates the theory in observable transformations of publics, public opinion and attention across changing media environments. Politically, it raises pressing questions about visibility, accountability and democratic agency in societies where publicness increasingly dissipates rather than condenses.