Employ­ing exam­ples of new media uses as well as his­tor­i­cal case stud­ies, I want­ed to show how new tech­nolo­gies, on one lev­el, con­tribute to the fur­ther indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion and lib­er­al­iza­tion of urban soci­ety. There is an alter­na­tive future sce­nario, how­ev­er, in which dig­i­tal media con­struct a new def­i­n­i­tion of the urban pub­lic sphere. In the process they also breathe new life into the clas­si­cal repub­li­can ide­al of the city as an open, demo­c­ra­t­ic ‘com­mu­ni­ty of strangers’.