Epistolary periodicals associated with English coffee house culture have often been associated with Jürgen Habermas' model for the rise of the ‘bourgeois public sphere’. Habermas proposed this ultimately gave rise to the free articulation of public opinion and the emergence of democratic values. Written at a time of socio‐political upheaval, John Dunton's serial publications relied upon anonymous authorship, particularly his most famous periodical, the Athenian Mercury (1691–97), which pioneered the question‐and‐answer format and gave rise to many imitations. In the present era, we are witnessing democracy imperilled by the proliferation of AI‐driven ‘fake news’. This paper proposes that the origins of this phenomenon may be found in epistolary periodicals which normalized giving and receiving offence in print. The pernicious quality of anonymous print, free from personal accountability or consequences, embedded from its inception a fatal flaw in the project of constituting a democratic public sphere.

中文翻译：

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民主的致命缺陷：约翰·邓顿书信期刊中的匿名性和冒犯的正常化

与英国咖啡馆文化相关的书信期刊常常与尤尔根·哈贝马斯的“资产阶级公共领域”兴起模型联系在一起。哈贝马斯提出，这最终导致了公众舆论的自由表达和民主价值观的出现。约翰·邓顿 (John Dunton) 在社会政治动荡时期撰写的连续出版物依赖于匿名作者，尤其是他最著名的期刊《雅典水星号（1691-97），它开创了问答形式并引起了许多模仿。在当今时代，我们正在目睹民主因人工智能驱动的“假新闻”的扩散而受到威胁。本文认为，这种现象的根源可能是在书信体期刊中找到的，这些期刊以印刷形式规范了给予和接受冒犯行为。匿名印刷品的有害性质，不受个人责任或后果的影响，从一开始就在构建民主公共领域的计划中嵌入了致命的缺陷。