1. Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere
• 1) What is "the public" and
• 2) what kinds of power does it have in a representative democracy?
3) How does "public opinion" shape political power and policy?
• 4) How is the system of political power maintained in a democracy?
These questions were of central concern to the cultural theorist
Jürgen Habermas.
2. • A student of the Frankfurt School of Social Research-which advanced
a Marxist critique of western capitalism and its discontents-Habermas
wrote The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) to
explore the status of public opinion in the practice of representative
government in Western Europe.
• Habermas defined the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary
community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space.
In its ideal form, the public sphere is "made up of private people
gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society
with the state" .
3. • Through acts of assembly and dialogue, the public sphere generates opinions and
attitudes which serve to affirm or challenge-therefore, to guide-the affairs of state.
In ideal terms, the public sphere is the source of public opinion needed to
"legitimate authority in any functioning democracy" (Rutherford 18).
• In his later work, Habermas made a distinction between "lifeworld" and "system."
• The public sphere is part of the lifeworld; "system" refers to the market economy
and the state apparatus.
• The lifeworld is the immediate milieu of the individual social actor, and Habermas
opposed any analysis which uncoupled the interdependence of the lifeworld and
the system in the negotiation of political power-it is thus a mistake to see that the
system dominates the whole of society. The goal of democratic societies is to
"erect a democratic dam against the colonizing encroachment of system
imperatives on areas of the lifeworld"
4. • A public sphere began to emerge in the 18th C. through the growth of
coffee houses, literary and other societies, voluntary associations, and the
growth of the press. In their efforts to discipline the state, parliament and
other agencies of representative government sought to manage this public
sphere. The success of the public sphere depends upon:
• The extent of access (as close to universal as possible),
• the degree of autonomy (the citizens must be free of coercion),
• the rejection of hierarchy (so that each might participate on an equal
footing),
• the rule of law (particularly the subordination of the state),
• and the quality of participation (the common commitment to the ways of
logic). (Rutherford 18).
5. • For Habermas, the success of the public sphere was founded on
rational-critical discourse-everyone is an equal participant and the
supreme communication skill is the power of argument.
• This ideal of the public sphere has never been fully achieved by most
accounts. As ethnic, gender, and class exclusions were removed
through the 19th and 20th centuries, and the public sphere
approached its ideal more closely, Habermas identifies a concurrent
deformation of the public sphere through the advance of social
welfare, the growth of culture industries, and the evolution of large
private interests. Large newspapers devoted to profit, for example,
turned the press into an agent of manipulation: "It became the gate
through which privileged private interests invaded the public sphere"
(185).
6. • Habermas writes of a "refeudalization" of power whereby the
illusions of the public sphere are maintained only to give sanction to
the decisions of leaders.
• Behind Habermas' analysis lies an oral bias: he believes the public
sphere can be most effectively constituted and maintained through
dialogue, acts of speech, through debate and discussion.
• In "Further Reflections," Habermas claims that public debate can be
animated by "opinion-forming associations"-voluntary associations,
social organizations, churches, sports clubs, groups of concerned
citizens, grassroots movements, trade unions-to counter or refashion
the messages of authority.
7. • For Habermas, the misuse of publicity undermines the public sphere.
"Manipulative publicity" (178) has become common: "Even arguments are
translated into symbols to which again one can not respond by arguing but only
by identifying with them" (206). Such propaganda manages views, fosters political
theatre, and conveys "authorized opinions" (245).
• Visual display-"showy pomp" (195) and "staged display" (206)-are used by those
in authority to assert dominance or entitlement.
• Jacques Ellul echoes Habermas' concern in Propaganda: The Formation of Men's
Attitudes (1962). Ellul's term "the propaganda of integration"--including biased
newscasts, misinformation, political education--works over time to shape the
individual to suit the needs of social mechanisms. Ellul argues that propaganda is
necessary in a democracy, even though it can create zombies of its citizens.
"Propaganda is needed in the exercise of power for the simple reason that the
masses have come to participate in political affairs."
8. • Herbert Marcuse, in One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of
Advanced Industrial Society, analyzes the new "voice of command"
used by managers, educators, experts, and politicians.
• This style of address, appropriated from advertising, has a hypnotic
effect. The syntax is abridged and condensed, giving the language
more directness and assertiveness; it uses an emphatic concreteness,
constant use of "you" and "your," and endlessly repeats images to fix
them in people's minds. This style of rhetoric in Marcuse's terms
creates the "one-dimensional" citizen, incapable of protest or refusal.
9. • For all these theorists, the techniques of advertising and publicity (largely
developed in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th C.) have invaded and
corrupted the public sphere. Image management (and image substitution)
combines with a style of authoritative discourse to offer little chance of
dialogue. Rutherford concludes:
• The [public] sphere remains a site for the production of public opinion that is
given concrete form by surveys and polls which, to a degree, actually fashion
the opinion through the process of asking certain questions (and not asking
others). Because of an excess of goods and risks competing for attention, the
sphere continues to be a contested arena; however, much of the excess is
manufactured by people and institutions with money, moral clout, or other
forms of power. The mass media play out a double roll here, both as the
vehicle for competitive spectacles and as the source of news, a different kind
of discourse, though again a monologue and now contaminated by the
ubiquity of publicity. (274-5)
10. • Rutherford uses an medical analogy to characterize the colonization
of the public sphere by systems of authority: "civic advocacy
constitutes a kind of virus which debilitates the body politic" (274).
Propaganda and persuasion don't kill the body politic--merely makes
it less effective--since power without the people would not be much
use
11. • The systems of money and power influence public opinion by
infiltrating people’s Lifeworlds.
• One particular mechanism is a message from a System that pretends
to be your friend. Budweiser tweets all day with private individuals
who drink its beer. And Donald Trump sends tweets to 58 million
people that look like messages from a buddy at loose ends around his
house.
