Definitions
Jürgen Habermas claims "We call events and occasions 'public' when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs". This 'public sphere' is a "realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all citizens". This notion of the public becomes evident in terms such as public health, public education, public opinion or public ownership. They are opposed to the notions of private health, private education, private opinion, and private ownership. The notion of the public is intrinsically connected to the notion of the private. Habermas stresses that the notion of the public is related to the notion of the common. For Hannah Arendt, the public sphere is therefore "the common world" that "gathers us together and yet prevents our falling over each other". Habermas defines the public sphere as a "society engaged in critical public debate". Conditions of the public sphere are according to Habermas: * The formation of public opinion * All citizens have access. * Conference in unrestricted fashion (based on the freedom of assembly, the freedom of association, the freedom to expression and publication of opinions) about matters of general interest, which implies freedom from economic and political control. * Debate over the general rules governing relations.Jürgen Habermas: bourgeois public sphere
Most contemporary conceptualizations of the public sphere are based on the ideas expressed in Jürgen Habermas' book '' The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society'', which is a translation of his '' Habilitationsschrift,'' ''Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit:Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft''. The''The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor.''Through this work, he gave a historical-sociological account of the creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a "bourgeois" public sphere based on rational-critical debate and discussion: Habermas stipulates that, due to specific historical circumstances, a new civic society emerged in the eighteenth century. Driven by a need for open commercial arenas where news and matters of common concern could be freely exchanged and discussed—accompanied by growing rates of literacy, accessibility to literature, and a new kind of critical journalism—a separate domain from ruling authorities started to evolve across Europe. "In its clash with the arcane and bureaucratic practices of the absolutist state, the emergent bourgeoisie gradually replaced a public sphere in which the ruler's power was merely represented before the people with a sphere in which state authority was publicly monitored through informed and critical discourse by the people". In his historical analysis, Habermas points out three so-called "''institutional criteria''" as preconditions for the emergence of the new public sphere. The discursive arenas, such as Britain's coffee houses, France's salons, and Germany's ''Tischgesellschaften'' "may have differed in the size and compositions of their publics, the style of their proceedings, the climate of their debates, and their topical orientations", but "they all organized discussion among people that tended to be ongoing; hence they had a number of institutional criteria in common": # ''Disregard of status:'' Preservation of "a kind of social intercourse that, far from presupposing the equality of status, disregarded status altogether. ... Not that this idea of the public was actually realized in earnest in the coffee houses, salons, and the societies; but as an idea, it had become institutionalized and thereby stated as an objective claim. If not realized, it was at least consequential." (''loc. cit.'') # ''Domain of common concern:'' "... discussion within such a public presupposed the problematization of areas that until then had not been questioned. The domain of 'common concern' which was the object of public critical attention remained a preserve in which church and state authorities had the monopoly of interpretation. ... The private people for whom the cultural product became available as a commodity profaned it inasmuch as they had to determine its meaning on their own (by way of rational communication with one another), verbalize it, and thus state explicitly what precisely in its implicitness for so long could assert its authority." (''loc. cit.'') # ''Inclusivity:'' However exclusive the public might be in any given instance, it could never close itself off entirely and become consolidated as a clique; for it always understood and found itself immersed within a more inclusive public of all private people, persons who – insofar as they were propertied and educated – as readers, listeners, and spectators could avail themselves via the market of the objects that were subject to discussion. The issues discussed became 'general' not merely in their significance, but also in their accessibility: everyone had to be able to participate. ... Wherever the public established itself institutionally as a stable group of discussants, it did not equate itself with the public but at most claimed to act as its mouthpiece, in its name, perhaps even as its educator – the new form of bourgeois representation" (''loc. cit.''). Habermas argued that the bourgeois society cultivated and upheld these criteria. The public sphere was well established in various locations including coffee shops and salons, areas of society where various people could gather and discuss matters that concerned them. The coffee houses in London society at this time became the centers of art and literary criticism, which gradually widened to include even the economic and the political disputes as matters of discussion. In French salons, as Habermas says, "opinion became emancipated from the bonds of economic dependence". Any new work, or a book or a musical composition had to get its legitimacy in these places. It not only paved a forum for self-expression but in fact had become a platform for airing one's opinions and agendas for public discussion. The emergence of a bourgeois public sphere was particularly supported by the 18th-century liberal democracy making resources available to this new political class to establish a network of institutions like publishing enterprises, newspapers and discussion forums, and the democratic press was the main tool to execute this. The key feature of this public sphere was its separation from the power of both the church and the government due to its access to a variety of resources, both economic and social. As Habermas argues, in due course, this sphere of rational and universalistic politics, free from both the economy and the State, was destroyed by the same forces that initially established it. This collapse was due to the consumeristic drive that infiltrated society, so citizens became more concerned about consumption than political actions. Furthermore, the growth of capitalistic economy led to an uneven distribution of wealth, thus widening economic polarity. Suddenly the media became a tool of political forces and a medium for advertising rather than the medium from which the public got their information on political matters. This resulted in limiting access to the public sphere and the political control of the public sphere was inevitable for the modern capitalistic forces to operate and thrive in the competitive economy.
Therewith emerged a new sort of influence, i.e., media power, which, used for purposes of manipulation, once and for all took care of the innocence of the principle of publicity. The public sphere, simultaneously restructured and dominated by the mass media, developed into an arena infiltrated by power in which, by means of topic selection and topical contributions, a battle is fought not only over influence but over the control of communication flows that affect behavior while their strategic intentions are kept hidden as much as possible.
Counterpublics, feminist critiques and expansions
Although '' Structural Transformation'' was (and is) one of the most influential works in contemporary German philosophy and political science, it took 27 years until an English version appeared on the market in 1989. Based on a conference on the occasion of the English translation, at which Habermas himself attended, Craig Calhoun (1992) edited ''Habermas and the Public Sphere'' – a thorough dissection of Habermas' bourgeois public sphere by scholars from various academic disciplines. The core criticism at the conference was directed towards the above stated "institutional criteria": # Hegemonic dominance and exclusion: In "Rethinking the Public Sphere," Nancy Fraser offers a feminist revision of Habermas' historical description of the public sphere, and confronts it with "recent revisionist historiography". She refers to other scholars, like Joan Landes,Rhetorical
Gerard Hauser proposed a different direction for the public sphere than previous models. He foregrounds the rhetorical nature of public spheres, suggesting that public spheres form around "the ongoing dialogue on public issues" rather than the identity of the group engaged in the discourse. Rather than arguing for an all-inclusive public sphere, or the analysis of tension between public spheres, he suggested that publics were formed by active members of society around issues. They are a group of interested individuals who engage in vernacular discourse about a specific issue. "Publics may be repressed, distorted, or responsible, but any evaluation of their actual state requires that we inspect the rhetorical environment as well as the rhetorical act out of which they evolved, for these are the conditions that constitute their individual character". These people formed rhetorical public spheres that were based in discourse, not necessarily orderly discourse but any interactions whereby the interested public engages each other. This interaction can take the form of institutional actors as well as the basic "street rhetoric" that "open a dialogue between competing factions." The spheres themselves formed around the issues that were being deliberated. The discussion itself would reproduce itself across the spectrum of interested publics "even though we lack personal acquaintance with all but a few of its participants and are seldom in contexts where we and they directly interact, we join these exchanges because they are discussing the same matters". In order to communicate within the public sphere, "those who enter any given arena must share a reference world for their discourse to produce awareness for shared interests and public opinions about them". This world consists of common meanings and cultural norms from which interaction can take place. The rhetorical public sphere has several primary features: # it is discourse-based, rather than class-based. # the critical norms are derived from actual discursive practices. Taking a universal reasonableness out of the picture, arguments are judged by how well they resonate with the population that is discussing the issue. # intermediate bracketing of discursive exchanges. Rather than a conversation that goes on across a population as a whole, the public sphere is composed of many intermediate dialogs that merge later on in the discussion. The rhetorical public sphere was characterized by five rhetorical norms from which it can be gauged and criticized. How well the public sphere adheres to these norms determine the effectiveness of the public sphere under the rhetorical model. Those norms are: # ''permeable boundaries'': Although a public sphere may have a specific membership as with any social movement or deliberative assembly, people outside the group can participate in the discussion. # ''activity'': Publics are active rather than passive. They do not just hear the issue and applaud, but rather they actively engage the issue and the publics surrounding the issue. # ''contextualized language'': They require that participants adhere to the rhetorical norm of contextualized language to render their respective experiences intelligible to one another. # ''believable appearance'': The public sphere must appear to be believable to each other and the outside public. # ''tolerance'': In order to maintain a vibrant discourse, others opinions need to be allowed to enter the arena. In all this Hauser believes a public sphere is a "discursive space in which strangers discuss issues they perceive to be of consequence for them and their group. Its rhetorical exchanges are the bases for shared awareness of common issues, shared interests, tendencies of extent and strength of difference and agreement, and self-constitution as a public whose opinions bear on the organization of society." This concept that the public sphere acts as a medium in which public opinion is formed as analogous to a lava lamp. Just as the lamp's structure changes, with its lava separating and forming new shapes, so does the public sphere's creation of opportunities for discourse to address public opinion, thereby forming new discussions of rhetoric. The lava of the public which holds together the public arguments is the public conversation.Media
Habermas argues that the public sphere requires "specific means for transmitting information and influencing those who receive it". Habermas' argument shows that the media are of particular importance for constituting and maintaining a public sphere. Discussions about the media have therefore been of particular importance in public sphere theory.As actors in the political public sphere
According to Habermas, there are two types of actors without whom no political public sphere could be put to work: professionals in the media system and politicians. For Habermas, there are five types of actors who make their appearance on the virtual stage of an established public sphere:(a) Lobbyists who represent special interest groups; (b) Advocates who either represent general interest groups or substitute for a lack of representation of marginalized groups that are unable to voice their interests effectively; (c) Experts who are credited with professional or scientific knowledge in some specialized area and are invited to give advice; (d) Moral entrepreneurs who generate public attention for supposedly neglected issues; (e) Intellectuals who have gained, unlike advocates or moral entrepreneurs, a perceived personal reputation in some field (e.g., as writers or academics) and who engage, unlike experts and lobbyists, spontaneously in public discourse with the declared intention of promoting general interests.Libraries have been inextricably tied to educational institutions in the modern era having developed within democratic societies. Libraries took on aspects of the public sphere (as did classrooms), even while public spheres transformed in the macro sense. These contextual conditions led to a fundamental conservative rethinking of civil society institutions like schools and libraries.
YouTube
Habermas argues that under certain conditions, the media act to facilitate discourse in a public sphere. The rise of the Internet has brought about a resurgence of scholars applying theories of the public sphere to Internet technologies. For example, a study by S. Edgerly et al. focused on the ability of YouTube to serve as an online public sphere. The researchers examined a large sample of video comments using the California Proposition 8 (2008) as an example. The authors argue that some scholars think the online public sphere is a space where a wide range of voices can be expressed due to the "low barrier of entry" and interactivity. However, they also point at a number of limitations. Edgerly et al. say that the affirmative discourse presupposes that YouTube can be an influential player in the political process and that it can serve as an influential force to politically mobilize young people. YouTube has allowed anyone and everyone to be able to get any political knowledge they wish. The authors mention critiques that say YouTube is built around the popularity of videos with sensationalist content. It has also allowed people to broadcast themselves for a large public sphere, where people can form their own opinions and discuss different things in the comments. The research by Edgerly, et al. found that the analyzed YouTube comments were diverse. They argue that this is a possible indicator that YouTube provides space for public discussion. They also found that YouTube videos' style influences the nature of the commentary. Finally, they concluded that the video's ideological stances influenced the language of the comments. The findings of the work suggest that YouTube is a public sphere platform.Limitations of media and the internet
Some, like Colin Sparks, note that a new global public sphere ought to be created in the wake of increasing globalization and global institutions, which operate at the supranational level. However, the key questions for him were, whether any media exists in terms of size and access to fulfil this role. The traditional media, he notes, are close to the public sphere in this true sense. Nevertheless, limitations are imposed by the market and concentration of ownership. At present, the global media fail to constitute the basis of a public sphere for at least three reasons. Similarly, he notes that the internet, for all its potential, does not meet the criteria for a public sphere and that unless these are "overcome, there will be no sign of a global public sphere". German scholars Jürgen Gerhards and Mike S. Schäfer conducted a study in 2009 in order to establish whether theVirtual
There has been an academic debate about how social media impacts the public sphere. The sociologists Brian Loader andMediated publicness
John Thompson criticises the traditional idea of public sphere by Habermas, as it is centred mainly in face-to-face interactions. On the contrary, Thompson argues that modern society is characterized by a new form of "mediated publicness", whose main characteristics are: * Despatialized (there is a rupture of time/space. People can see more things, as they do not need to share the same physical location, but this extended vision always has an angle, which people do not have control over). * Non dialogical (unidirectional. For example, presenters on TV are not able to adapt their discourse to the reactions of the audience, since they are visible to a wide audience but that audience is not directly visible to them. However, internet allows a bigger interactivity). * Wider and more diverse audiences. (The same message can reach people with different education, different social class, different values and beliefs, and so on.) This mediated publicness has altered the power relations in a way in which not only the many are visible to the few but the few can also now see the many:"Whereas the Panopticon renders many people visible to a few and enables power to be exercised over the many by subjecting them to a state of permanent visibility, the development of communication media provides a means by which many people can gather information about a few and, at the same time, a few can appear before many; thanks to the media, it is primarily those who exercise power, rather than those over whom power is exercised, who are subjected to a certain kind of visibility".However, Thompson also acknowledges that "media and visibility is a double-edged sword" meaning that even though they can be used to show an improved image (by managing the visibility), individuals are not in full control of their self-presentation. Mistakes, gaffes or scandals are now recorded therefore they are harder to deny, as they can be replayed by the media.
The public service model
Examples of the public service model include BBC in Britain, and the ABC and SBS in Australia. The political function and effect of modes of public communication has traditionally continued with the dichotomy between Hegelian State and civil society. The dominant theory of this mode includes the liberal theory of the free press. However, the public service, state-regulated model, whether publicly or privately funded, has always been seen not as a positive good but as an unfortunate necessity imposed by the technical limitations of frequency scarcity. According to Habermas's concept of the public sphere, the strength of this concept is that it identifies and stresses the importance for democratic politics of a sphere distinct from the economy and the State. On the other hand, this concept challenges the liberal free press tradition form the grounds of its materiality, and it challenges the Marxist critique of that tradition from the grounds of the specificity of politics as well. From Garnham's critique, three great virtues of Habermas's public sphere are mentioned. Firstly, it focuses on the indissoluble like between the institutions and practices of mass public communication and the institutions and practices of democratic politics. The second virtue of Habermas's approach concentrate on the necessary material resource base for ant public. Its third virtue is to escape from the simple dichotomy of free market versus state control that dominates so much thinking about media policy.Non-liberal theories
Proletarian
The distinction between bourgeois and proletarian public spheres is not mainly a distinction between classes. The proletarian public sphere is rather to be conceived of as the "excluded", vague, unarticulated impulses of resistance or resentment. The proletarian public sphere carries the subjective feelings, the egocentric malaise with the common public narrative, interests that are not socially valorized :"As extraeconomic interests, they exist—precisely in the forbidden zones of fantasy beneath the surface of taboos—as stereotypes of a proletarian context of living that is organized in a merely rudimentary form." The bourgeois and proletarian public spheres are mutually defining: The proletarian public sphere carries the "left-overs" from the bourgeois public sphere, while the bourgeois public is based upon the productive forces of the underlying resentment: :"In this respect, they " .e. the proletarian public spheres" have two characteristics: in their defensive attitude toward society, their conservatism, and their subcultural character, they are once again mere objects; but they are, at the same time, the block of real life that goes against the valorization interest. As long as capital is dependent on living labor as a source of wealth, this element of the proletarian context of living cannot be extinguished through repression."Production
Negt and Kluge furthermore point out the necessity of considering a third dimension of the public spheres: The public spheres of production. The public spheres of production collect the impulses of resentment and instrumentalizes them in the productive spheres. The public spheres of production are wholly instrumental and have no critical impulse (unlike the bourgeois and proletarian spheres). The interests that are incorporated in the public sphere of production are given capitalist shape, and questions of their legitimately are thus neutralized.Biopolitical public
By the end of the 20th century, the discussions about public spheres got a new biopolitical twist. Traditionally the public spheres had been contemplated as to how free agents transgress the private spheres. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have, drawing on the late Michel Foucault's writings onSee also
* Argumentation theory * Commons *References
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