COMS101: The Public Sphere

L2: The Public Sphere Overview
Habermas and TSTotPS
History/ies of the PS
Structural Decline/Refeudalisation
Critiques of the Habermasian PS
Beyond TSTotPS
The modern media and the PS
The internet and PS

Jürgen Habermas
German political philosopher/sociologist
A student of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, Institut für Sozialforschung

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (TSTotPS)
Ancient Greeks
Deliberative democracy
“that realm of social life where the exchange of information and views on questions of common concern can take place so that public opinion can be formed.”

History/ies of the Public Sphere
Feudal society
Representative publicity
the royalty and aristocracy “represented their lordship not for but “before” the people” (1989: 7)

The rise of the bourgeois public sphere in Britain, France and Germany; 18thC
Public press, coffeehouses, salons, etc.

Inherent exclusion, explained away by theoretical social mobility
White, male, propertied
Bourgeois = homme
(property owners)
=
(human)

Structural Decline & Refeudalisation
Mill and de Tocqueville – wider participation & ‘the tyranny of the majority’
Rise of industrial
capitalism
 loss of criticality
state interventionism
public ~/~ private

Structural Decline & Refeudalisation
The Mass Media
Commercialisation
PR and advertising
debate acquiesence
participation consumption
The PS became “the court before which public prestige can be displayed, rather than in which public critical debate is carried out” (1989: 201)

A student re-enactment of…

Critiques of the Habermasian Public Sphere
Historical inaccuracies
Over-idealisingthe internal function of the bourgeois PS
Existence of multiple historical PS
Unacknowledged exclusions from PS
Class, gender, race
Over-pessimistic about modernity and media

Critiques of the Habermasian Public Sphere
Theoretical criticisms
Many, but Fraser (1992) outlines 4 important dimensions (postmodern/feminist critique)
Impossible to bracket status differentials
Multiple publics and counterpublics
Public ?/? Private
Separation from state

Beyond TSTotPS
Habermas’s ‘linguistic turn’
No universal institutional basis for the PS
transcendental
basis in
communication
Communicative
action

Beyond TSTotPS
Lifeworld and system
Communicative siege, moving from periphery to core
Ideal speech situation
I’m ideal!

Beyond TSTotPS
Overall, more optimistic about the potential for citizens to influence power
Active audience theory (cultural studies)
But is this optimism too simple?
I’m ideal!

Modern media and the public sphere
Overall, pessimistic view.
The lifeworld can be
colonised by the system:
Coercion
Agenda-setting
Ideological power/hegemony
Declining political/civic engagement

Modern media and the public sphere
Overall, pessimistic view.
Declining political/civic engagement
But: thepolitical cf. the Political?
And what about the internet?

The internet and the public sphere
Techno-utopianism and –dystopianism
Reality is complex
Traditional big media on the Net
Citizen media on the Net
Digital divides
Politics online
The market and the internet
Multiple PSs

Thanks for having me, and best of luck with the rest of the course 

COMS101: The Public Sphere

by Tessa J. Houghton

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