Public Sphere Discourse

In 1962, Jürgen Habermas wrote the seminal The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Since then, the concept of the public sphere has been the subject of much analysis and criticism, and the theory has undergone some minor revisions. The concept of the public sphere was presented by Habermas as both an empirical description and an ideal.

As conceived, the bourgeois public sphere was viewed as “the sphere of private people come together as a public” (Habermas, 1991b, p. 27). It was an arena in which there was equality among all of the participants in social discourse, where all topics were open for discussion, and was inclusive, at least in principle. Habermas conceded that, in fact, some potential participants were excluded, but argued that all had an equal chance to meet the criteria of education and property to be included.

The public sphere is a space where public opinion can be formed. The formation of public opinion “refers to the functions of criticism and control of organized state authority” (Habermas, 1991a, p. 399). The public sphere mediates between the realms of the private and the state, and the guarantees of the basic rights of citizens in the liberal state depend on the demarcation between the two. For such mediation to be effective, discourse in the public sphere must be critical and rational. Above all, such discourse must rise above simply aggregating individual interests and form a bridge between self-interest and the common good. (Habermas's writings on communication action and on discourse ethics, drawing on the works of George Herbert Mead and Lawrence Kohlberg, are an attempt to show how this can be done.) For this bridge to exist, society must institutionalize the “practices of rational public debate” (Habermas, 1992, p. 448). Habermas's last major work, Between Facts and Norms (1996), addresses the basic constitutional guarantees he sees as necessary structures. Among the structural guarantees are freedom of press and assembly. This recognizes the importance of communication institutions to achieving the functions of the public sphere.

In his empirical description of the evolution of the public sphere, Habermas saw it as a product of a particular epoch, arising first in Great Britain around 1700 and then in France (c. 1750) and Germany (c. 1800). The social precondition was a market economy that led to exchange relationships based on contract and parity of individuals before the law. Legitimation of the law became dependent on public opinion.

This seemingly ideal public sphere was transformed during the late 1800s. It became squeezed by the state taking over more and more functions of the private sphere and private interests assuming a more public character, thereby stressing self-interest at the expense of the common good. The communication industry changed by decreasing its political and news or information functions and becoming increasingly involved with turning the public sphere into an arena of consumption, both of products and of culture. As a result, Habermas wrote, we now have a public sphere “in appearance only” and the “sounding board of an educated stratum tutored in the public use of reason has been shattered” (1992, pp. 171–175).

...