English edition. The rise of the informal media – how search engines, weblogs and YouTube change public opinion. The public mass media are no longer the most important platforms of openness, formulation of opinion or reflection. They are under threat from less formal and more personally tailored digital media and ‘media formats’ such as weblogs, videologs and podcasts, from phenomena like YouTube and Second Life. The interaction between the established media and the new micromedia and virtual media environments has implications for the ‘public programme’, understood as the sum total of public principles and demands. This issue of Open investigates how the more individually tailored communication technologies and media strategies alter ‘the message’ and reconfigure the public domain. Does the public definitively disintegrate in digital media spheres or is it being rewritten based on a different logic? What are the opportunities for artistic practices and critical forms of publicness?