Concept Of Public Sphere Research Articles

The debates about the public sphere from social systems theory

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to present the initial debate that generated the main contributions to the discussion of the public sphere from the perspective of systems theory. Although Luhmann consolidates himself as the main reference of this theoretical branch, he is not its only supporter, and other authors of this line also presented arguments for thinking about the concept of public sphere. Several of these authors' contributions were, in some way, incorporated by Luhmann or departed from Luhmann. Considering that we are working with social systems theory, we made a division based on a criterion that has heuristic purposes to map the argumentative field: On the one hand, we have the authors who consider the public sphere as a system and, on the other hand, authors who do not consider it as a system.

The Caring Public Sphere: Reframing the Concept in an Era of Care Crises

This article reframes the public sphere concept by bringing it dialogue with feminist theories of care. Care ethics foreground vulnerability and interdependence, suggesting that vulnerability is a shared condition and that we are all dependent on each other in order to survive. This helps to rethink the role of the public sphere within the democratic system, as a space not only for opinion formation, but also for the development of citizens with the necessary skills and dispositions to take care of the issues discussed in public. A focus on care also aids in reconsidering public affairs as issues that are intimately connected with needs and vulnerabilities; listening as an act of care; the processing of emotions as a key function of the deliberative process; and personal testimony as an important type of argumentation. The concept of care further helps in refinining the universal access principle by highlighting the importance of intimate spaces, where participants feel safe to be vulnerable, and of how these multiple publics can be interconnected through mobilising relationships of interdependence. Finally, it allows us to consider “care work” for communication infrastructure, including both media technologies and people’s bodies, as a constitutive part of the public sphere.

Transnacionalização da justiça em Nancy Fraser

Based on the analysis of the theoretical-social assumptions that link Habermas' initial conception of the public sphere to the Westphalian framework of public space, Nancy Fraser proposes the need for restructuring the public sphere based on a transnational framework, given the existence of discursive arenas that go beyond the limits of the Nation State, with a strong influence on social reality. In this context, Fraser emphasizes that the concept of public sphere was developed not only to understand communication flows, but also to contribute to a normative political theory of democracy. In this theory, a public sphere is conceived as a space for the communicative generation of public opinion. Aiming to guarantee that the process is inclusive and fair, publicity should discredit views that cannot withstand critical scrutiny, for the purpose of ensuring the legitimacy of those who participate in the process. Therefore, it matters who participates and under what conditions. In these terms, two ideas are central to the analysis of the public sphere: normative legitimacy and the political effectiveness of public opinion. The absence of these elements renders the concept empty of critique and political action, according to Fraser. Therefore, the author seeks to rethink the Habermasian public sphere theory, which is implicitly guided by a Westphalian political imaginary, a vision that no longer corresponds to contemporary globalized reality.

Transnacionalização da justiça em Nancy Fraser

Based on the analysis of the theoretical-social assumptions that link Habermas' initial conception of the public sphere to the Westphalian framework of public space, Nancy Fraser proposes the need for restructuring the public sphere based on a transnational framework, given the existence of discursive arenas that go beyond the limits of the Nation State, with a strong influence on social reality. In this context, Fraser emphasizes that the concept of public sphere was developed not only to understand communication flows, but also to contribute to a normative political theory of democracy. In this theory, a public sphere is conceived as a space for the communicative generation of public opinion. Aiming to guarantee that the process is inclusive and fair, publicity should discredit views that cannot withstand critical scrutiny, for the purpose of ensuring the legitimacy of those who participate in the process. Therefore, it matters who participates and under what conditions. In these terms, two ideas are central to the analysis of the public sphere: normative legitimacy and the political effectiveness of public opinion. The absence of these elements renders the concept empty of critique and political action, according to Fraser. Therefore, the author seeks to rethink the Habermasian public sphere theory, which is implicitly guided by a Westphalian political imaginary, a vision that no longer corresponds to contemporary globalized reality.

Between (Conceptual) Crisis and Critique: Reclaiming the Critical Epistemic Value of Publicness

Different understandings of what it means to be critical in the social sciences, especially in terms of the distinction between instrumental and reflexive knowledge, can be illustrated by the ongoing conceptual disputes about the critical epistemic value of public opinion and the public sphere as the main instantiations of publicness. The concept of the public sphere has gained prominence in media and communication theory, filling a void created by the decline of critical public opinion discourse, which was overshadowed by promotional publicity and opinion polls. Initially rooted in the German concept of Öffentlichkeit, this idea was revived in the English term ‘public sphere’. Its adoption transcended disciplinary boundaries, sparking fresh critical perspectives in the study of publicness. Yet, this widespread adoption also brought about a certain dilution of the concept’s epistemic depth. The digital age, characterized by the ascendancy of the Internet and the blurring of public–private boundaries, has greatly reshaped our comprehension of the public sphere, and expanded the scope of the concept. Today, however, the public sphere concept faces a fate reminiscent of administrative public opinion discourse following the proliferation of opinion polls. At a time when society is faced with issues related to the control of digital platforms by oligarchs, reevaluation and revitalization of the concepts of the public sphere and publicness become essential for comprehending the dynamics of modern communication.

The Contemporary Public Sphere-Habermas’ Perspective

Undoubtedly, the contribution of public opinion and involvement is a critical aspect in shaping and influencing the political, social, and democratic courses within a nation. The concept of the public sphere acknowledges the presence and studies the initiation of integral discourses conducted by the public. Indeed, the German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, instigated and established the understanding of such a concept. He critically highlights that the presence and participatory nature of the public sphere is crucial for a democracy. His theory, espoused in his 1985 Theory of Communicative Action, is predicated upon the principle that how we communicate, affects the content of that communication in the reasonable discourse of a mature democracy (Lock and Strong, 2010, p. 78). Nevertheless, it is evident that the development of technology and the internet has led to immense changes in the manner in which the public is able to become involved in such activities. Unquestionably, newspapers, writing letters, television and public meetings are no longer the only public sphere sources of the communication of information and the rise of social media and the virtual world provides many new sorts of opportunities for the exchange of views (Masip et al, 2019). Jürgen Habermas’ theory was established over a decade before the advent of social media, which raises critical questions as to the placement of the public sphere in the context of the realm of social media. The public sphere has been fundamentally developed by digital communication and the emergence of the immediacy of opinion making via social media platforms, introducing a less personally interactive but much broader participatory base, increasingly sophisticated and more contentious (Mahlouly, 2013). This paper will examine the nature of communication in the contemporary public sphere and verify whether the rise of social media and the virtual world extends the public sphere or diminishes the level of rational conversation through exploring the public sphere; and monitor his structure, function and places of work, according to Habermas’ theoretical vision. Moreover, to explain its components in the political and social field in the lifeworld. Also, to what extent of the contemporary sphere's applicability to Habermas' communicative theory. While Habermas' vision of the public sphere and communication was emphasized, it has been argued the perspective of Hannah Arendt and her “public realm”. In addition, many contemporary thinkers, particularly Fraser, argued about the concept of the contemporary public sphere in the postmodern.

“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

In Time: Periodical Theories and Philosophies of History in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Throughout modern history, concepts and metaphors of time have been part of the self-conception and self-marketing of countless periodicals. Concentrating on journals and magazines from the German-speaking countries between around 1800 and around 1968, the article outlines a history of the periodical as a subject and object of philosophies of historical time. The cases examined not only show the affinity between periodical theory and the philosophy of history, but also shed light on the specific roles that have been attributed to periodical publishing in varying conceptions of the modern intellectual public sphere.

Rethinking digital media use for diasporic political participation: An investigation into journalism advocacy, digital activism, and democratic divides (Dissertation summary)

By presenting five studies on connected research questions, this cumulative dissertation develops a novel understanding of the concept of Hybrid Diasporic Public Sphere by examining how three groups of diasporic exiles, including journalists, activists, and ordinary refugees settled in democratic states, use digital media to engage in transnational conflicts and advocate for political and social change in their homelands. The study demonstrates that the roles of the three diasporic political actors are highly interactive, overlapping, and complementary and their digitally-empowered collaborations blur boundaries between their normative role distinctions creating new interchanging political logics, norms, and practices. The novel contribution of this thesis lies at three levels. First, it redefines diaspora journalism in conflict contexts by examining the Syrian journalists’ media advocacy strategies and digital networks that blend activism, human rights advocacy, and social movements. Second, it further identifies five barriers to the digital diasporic political participation of ordinary refugees demonstrating new forms of democratic divides. Third, the study develops the concept of connected diaspora activist identifying the current challenges that undermine the potential of social media use for mobilizing a political change in non-revolutionary times. The dissertation employs four qualitative research methods including digital ethnography, content analysis, metajournalistic discourse analysis, and a total of 94 in-depth interviews.

The Place of a Literary Manifesto in the 21st Century

The manifesto, both political and aesthetic, significantly marked the map of cultural history. The genre, steaming from approximately the beginning of the 19th century, has gone through a number of transformations in terms of form and content and reached its participative peak in the 1920s. Being established during the times of modernism, manifesto practice gradually decreased at the cusp of cultural epochs, thus resulting in being marginalized, parodied, and extruded from the present discourse. The article, narrowly focusing on the literary manifesto, suggests several reasons for the mentioned phenomena.Taking the two semantic aspects of a literary manifesto – performative and theoretic – the author explores their functioning in terms of the two representative movements of modernism and postmodernism. “The moment of the manifesto,” meaning the climax regarding the quantity of produced manifestos in times of modernist flourish, is explained by the collapse of a public sphere concept, the performativity of the epoch itself, and the prevalence of complex theoretical paradigms aiming at rethinking the literary canon. The postmodern fall concerning manifesto tradition is argued to be the result of the shift in theoretical approach and apparatus, associated with the linguistic turn in art and philosophy, while the performative aspect is claimed to be ruined due to such reasons as the acceleration of the literary process, inactiveness in terms of protest activity due to the post-capitalist reality, alienation from “the real” politics and the tendency to consider art more quality if being peripheralized.Therefore, the article elaborates on the need for manifesto practice in the 21st century as the manifesto is considered as the instrument of reconstructing and reviving the performative aspect, necessary for political emancipation. Also, noticing the present theoretic stagnation in literary studies, the author necessitates the resurgence of a manifesto as it may appear helpful in reinvigorating the field of literary theory.

Is public sphere secular by principle?

The article critically examines the place of religion in modern conceptions of public space and asks whether the modern public space is “secular” in principle and what it means. Questioning the place of religious communities, traditions and claims in a public sphere clearly hinges on the conception of public sphere. The answer given will depend on the perspective we adopt, whether it is a normative perspective, a critical anthropological perspective and a philosophical-historical perspective. The article examines three answers that stand for three different perspectives and that are the following: Yes, No, and a qualified Yes. While each of perspectives defines the place of religion differently, the article retraces the evolution of a dialogue over the last twenty years. The tendency is to recognise the place of religion while adapting the notion of public sphere from secular and exclusive to post-secular and inclusive, while retaining the crucial normative aspect that public space holds for a democratic society.

Religion and the Parameters for the Modern Understanding of Public Sphere: An Unwanted Association

The concept of public sphere is a highly controversial term in several disciplines. Dating from ancient Greece, the concept gained its modern definition in the early 18th century. The sense of public sphere was gender and property based and later changed completely through modernity. The concept emerged in a dereligionized area where any topics were discussable after religious and traditional beliefs and values were left in the private sphere.Following the Industrial Revolution, the efforts to understand life and world led to new opinions, including individualism, rationalism, secularism, nation-state and citizenship. The common acceptance of these notions is definable by their rejection of religions. This study examines the unwanted association of religion with some parameters for the modern public sphere that intends to constitute its own beliefs since religion has aimed to orient itself to such changes and obtain a public characteristic, which is today more apparent than ever before.

Quality of Understanding in Communication among and between Political Parties, Mass Media, and Citizens: An Empirical Study of the 2013 Austrian National Election

The study investigates the extent to which political parties, the mass media, and citizens follow qualitative principles demanded by the public sphere concept in political campaign communications. Using the index of a quality of understanding (IQU), it analyses the press releases and Facebook posts of political parties, newspaper articles, and responses by citizens in the form of comments in newspaper forums and on parties’ Facebook pages (N=7,525) during the 2013 Austrian national election. Considering that the quality of understanding of public discourse is measured on a 100-point scale, which serves as a benchmark representing perfect understanding, observed real-world values are often rather low. Austrian political parties scored the highest IQU of 28.35 points, and hence can be described as most closely following the principles of an ideal communication orientation. The quality of understanding is the lowest in everyday political discussion on Facebook, where political parties’ posts have an IQU of 17.97 points. The difference of 10.38 points to the highest achieved value of 28.35 reveals different deliberative communication practices between well-considered and strategically formulated communication in press releases as well as newspaper articles and everyday communication including citizens’ comments on Facebook and newspaper articles, which take different configurations.

Revisiting Coffee Shops as Public Space in Purwokerto

The increasing number of coffee shops identifies the dynamics of urban life in Purwokerto. However, how does the existence of these coffee shops influence the socio-cultural life of the society? The research aims to examine the socio-cultural functions of coffee shops in Purwokerto in accordance to the role of public sphere. The concept of public sphere by Jurgen Habermas is used the theoretical foundation of the analysis. Using descriptive qualitative method, the study analyses data taken from the observation and interview process. Due to the large number of coffee shops in Purwokerto, the researchers select six coffee shops with different characteristics. The research finds that coffee shops in Purwokerto tend to be a place to meet up after school or work and spend their leisure time, as the coffee shop offers a good atmosphere to be more focused and productive on their work. Thus, the function of public sphere is hardly found. Instead, coffee shop becomes a private place for individuals to engage with their own individuality and communities

The public sphere in the twilight zone of publicness

The article discusses the reasons and conditions for the rise and fall of the popularity of the public sphere concept in scholarly discourse in four parts. The first part examines the peculiar circumstances of the emergence of the concept of the public sphere, and its rapid and widespread adoption in the social sciences. The second part discusses the complexity of the concept “Öffentlichkeit” and its English proxy “the public sphere,” and the contemporary critique of its ideological predispositions. The third part focuses on the liberalization and (operational) banalization of the concept. The final part suggests ways in which social scientists could respond critically to the challenges outlined earlier and reintegrate publicness, the public, and the public sphere into the analysis.

Rebalancing Religious Policy and the Concept of Public Sphere: Indonesia Cases

As the largest Muslim country, Indonesia is on the way to balancing the order of its people, their religious practice, and how these two are influencing the public sphere. There is an existing regulation called Anti-Blasphemy Law which contains any rule to guarantee that religion and the public sphere do not contradict from one to another. Related to it, this research found that in this digital era with an advanced development on technology, some factors potentially create any form of manipulation on religion which comprises religion itself, social dynamic, and legal instrument. This form of manipulation has also triggered the advancement of the interdependency discourse on religion and the public sphere. In the context of Indonesia, by its characteristic, to separate religion and the public sphere will only create other problems among religious people. Using normative legal research, this paper aims to look at the relevance of the Anti-Blasphemy Law to the socio-structural conditions of Indonesian society. In this research, it is argued that religion and the public sphere (state) should be placed through a form of functional differentiation concept, and found that there is an interdependent relationship between religion and the public sphere, nevertheless, Anti-Blasphemy Law failed to create and maintain this relation. Hence, legal reform on the Anti-Blasphemy Law has become a necessity in ensuring a balanced and harmonious (state) religious life.

The politics of happily-ever-after: romance genre fiction as aesthetic public sphere

How does the romance reading community understand the genre in relation to sociopolitical concerns? This paper draws on interviews, observations of romance writers’ conferences, and a variety of text data to explore how popular romance fiction functions as an aesthetic public sphere, a site of political discourse. While I find that romance novels and the romance community address a range of sociopolitical issues, readers and writers debate whether they should address these issues. Some think romance should only provide entertainment, while others embrace the genre’s potential for active engagement with sociopolitical issues. These expectations play out in both romance novels and in community relations. Despite debate over the ideal purpose of romance, there is widespread agreement among readers that the genre is fundamentally about hope and the belief that love—and romance reading—can transform the world. This research extends the aesthetic public sphere concept to popular genre fiction, showing that romance is a particular kind of reading experience that allows readers to engage with serious sociopolitical issues with the promise of a happily-ever-after.

Theoretical and practical influences of Habermas’s global academic best seller: structural transformation of the public sphere in the United States

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the reception and impact of Jürgen Habermas’s global academic best seller in the USA between 1974 and 2018. It specifically addresses the consequences of the long delay in the publication of the English translation of Habermas’s 1962 public sphere concept until 1989 in the context of Habermas’s paradigm shift from the Kantian ideal of a participatory democracy to a systems-theoretical interpretation of deliberative democracy, which informs Between Facts and Norms (1992/1996).Design/methodology/approachThis paper can be classified as a “conceptual paper” that draws on empirical research, namely, Adrian Rauchfleisch’s (2017) bibliometric co-citation analysis of two decades of public sphere research, which features a multi-dimensional scaling of these research communities based on the distance matrix of the co-citation network.FindingsAs the 22,000 scholarly citations for structural transformation as of April 2018 already indicate, this paper confirms in detail that Habermas’s original public sphere concept attracts significantly more academic interest on an interdisciplinary basis than Between Facts and Norms, which no longer pursues a critical theory of contemporary democracy. Instead, this shift toward a uniquely sophisticated theory construction in the realm of normativity produces a work in Rechtstheorie (Thomas McCarthy) that is by definition removed from political practice. The paper demonstrates that only the criteria developed in structural transformation can be applied to the analysis of constitutional crises in the USA.Originality/valueThis paper was researched and written solely by the author. All sources are clearly identified.

Commodification In Public Sphere; The Fight Of Ideology Through Social Media

This paper wants to present a critical perspective in reading the discourse that has been played on social media in the last few days. With literature review method, the KPK Taliban is a form of discourse in which ideological values which are basically the principle of a person or group in determining the direction and purpose of how to proceed, are modified in such a way as to be sold or made into public commodities for political interests. The use of the term Taliban which is associated with hardline of Islam, wants to form an Islamic government in accordance with Islamic laws, is considered have a high 'selling power' so that it can be used to reduce the image of KPK as a law enforcement agency. Like a word, every journalist will try to make interesting headline to get a high view of readers. This term can seem to describe that there has been an internal radicalization in KPK that has created a system of eradicating selective corruption based on the ideology of investigator. From this point of view, social media can be said to be an easy facilitator to explore discourses of this kind. Due to the absence of a gate keeper or news editor, anyone who has an interest in them is free to release any statement even if it is not accompanied by valid data. Even rational and critical discussions such as the basic concept of public sphere are transformed into irrational

پێگەى عەقڵانییەت لە پانتایى گشتیدا لە ڕوانگەى (یۆرگن هابرماس)ەوە

The concept of public sphere is of great importance in the political philosophy and philosophy of German philosopher (Jürgen Habermas), especially after the Second World War when democratic values ​​and principles spread throughout the world. (Habermas) one of the theorists of “consultative democracy” wants in the space of public sphere to develop this kind of democracy, so rationality public sphere is a prerequisite for any society to develop “consultative democracy”, because all citizens in public sphere equal in free and rational debate without Compression, coercion and coercion around the issue, subject, problem, and phenomena involved so that a kind of consensus and agreement can be formed between them through the communicative act, produced by the words of the pilgrims and the Hermeneutics, to reach the truth and reveal the hidden and mysterious meaning behind the words and actions of the persons among themselves. We divided the subjects of this research into two axes; in the first axis we explained the term public sphere in (Habermas). In the second axis we talked about the rational dimensions that (Habermas) is developing in the public sphere in order to expand and advance the area of ​​public sphere in the form of (Habermas), which is believed to be one of the most important individuals in the public sphere. In the discourse, in order to understand the path of the Hermeneutic Science, the perception is attempted in the sense of the content of the discourse and record the highest level of rationality in the communicative action.