The nature of the public sphere is that it is ever evolving. The changes in technology that we've seen in the past decade have had a very significant impact on the public sphere. Soon the printed word will be a thing of the past, replaced by electronic book readers. The growth in technology has also led to a greater awareness about important issues. Prior to the internet, people could only hear about world news from a few sources TV and Radio and newspapers. This made the content more streamlined and caused the consumer to only have to deal with a few causes or issues at a time. With the internet however, thousands of causes flash before our eyes in a matter of minutes and each demands our attention. This is the effect of fragmentation, a concept discussed in Alan McKee's book "The Public Sphere." The lost boys of Sudan have suffered from this Fragmentation, as their cause has gone unnoticed in the larger Public Sphere. With the thousands of causes that the western world could devote their time and money to, the lost boys must make efforts to increase awareness of their cause. They are competing to even be recognized in our world, even though they really do exist.
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