Concept Of Public Sphere Research Articles

Deliberative public sphere: The rereading of Habermas’s theory in Brazil and its significance for a public theology

With the democratization process in Brazil, legal guarantees were obtained for political mobilizations and organizations. At the societal level, the emergence of new social actors helped expand the boundaries of the political and consolidate a politically influential public sphere. Although communication between the public sphere and the political system occurs under many limitations, new experiences at the local level such as the Participatory Budget enable a clearer link between society and state. In theoretical terms, this means a complement to a discursive conception of the public sphere as developed by Jurgen Habermas, as a deliberative function is assigned to it. In this paper, after considering the social and theoretical context of reception and rereading of the concept of public sphere in sociological studies in Brazil, we engage the question about a public theology that can be developed in a dialogue with Habermas’s theory. Resorting to the criticism of South African theologians James Cochrane and Tinyiko Maluleke against public theologies that based on Habermas reject the democratic potential of liberation theologies, we affirm that criticism and resistance are constitutive elements of democratic dialogue. This affirmation is not inconsistent with the political theory of Habermas; rather, his theory allows to identify the relevance of a public theology precisely in its connection with spheres of life in which the suffering caused by the social problems to be denounced and discussed in the public sphere are more directly perceived. Besides the link between lifeworld and public sphere, as well as between public sphere and political system, other themes of Habermas’s political theory regarded in this article as relevant to be considered in discussions of public theology are the creative potential of language and the presence of religion in the public sphere.

Cidadania, comunicaçã o e esfera pública: delineamentos conceituais básicos e indicativos de pesquisa

This article studies the contribution of the concept of public sphere, proposed by Habermas and other contemporary authors, for understanding and deepening of citizenship and communication studies. Initially, this paper focuses the genealogy of the concept of public sphere and its appropriation to the debate on the consolidation of Brazilian democracy. Then, this paper specifies the space of freedom and emancipation beyond the regulatory institutions in contemporary society - the state, economy and community. Then this article introduces the discussion of communication issues, linked to notions of democracy and citizenship, and placing the concept of the public sphere as central to the current theoretical and epistemological discussion about communication and citizenship.

Entre o radicalismo e a resignação: teoria democrática em Direito e democracia, de Habermas

No artigo, William Scheuerman examina a grande contribuição de Habermas à teoria democrática, o livro publicado no Brasil como Direito e democracia. Ele sinaliza a virada "realista" e conservadora da obra, que nega o compromisso democrático radical que marcava seu pensamento anterior. Em particular, Habermas incorpora a sociologia política de Bernhard Peters. Com isso, a distinção crítica entre públicos fortes e públicos fracos, que Habermas busca trazer da leitura de Nancy Fraser sobre o conceito de esfera pública, une-se à ideia de uma distinção funcional do sistema político, em que o centro deve tomar as decisões e a influência da sociedade civil é sempre indireta e mediada.

Social Media and the Public Sphere

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media.Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1st, 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19th, 2014, at the University of Westminster.The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at:https://vimeo.com/97173645

Social Media and the Public Sphere

Social media has become a key term in Media and Communication Studies and public discourse for characterising platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Wordpress, Blogspot, Weibo, Pinterest, Foursquare and Tumblr. This paper discusses the role of the concept of the public sphere for understanding social media critically. It argues against an idealistic interpretation of Habermas and for a cultural-materialist understanding of the public sphere concept that is grounded in political economy. It sets out that Habermas’ original notion should best be understood as a method of immanent critique that critically scrutinises limits of the media and culture grounded in power relations and political economy. The paper introduces a theoretical model of public service media that it uses as foundation for identifying three antagonisms of the contemporary social media sphere in the realms of the economy, the state and civil society. It concludes that these limits can only be overcome if the colonisation of the social media lifeworld is countered politically so that social media and the Internet become public service and commons-based media.Acknowledgement: This paper is the extended version of Christian Fuchs’ inaugural lecture for his professorship of social media at the University of Westminster that he took up on February 1st, 2013. He gave the lecture on February 19th, 2014, at the University of Westminster.The video version of the inaugural lecture is available at:https://vimeo.com/97173645

Public Discourse between Counterfactual Idealisations and Practical Realisation in Public Sphere

The article explores different approaches to the theoretical grounding of public use of reason developed by Habermas, Kant and Rawls. It is focused on Habermas’s idea of communicative rationality and the public sphere, and then this approach is related to Kantian practical reason and Rawls’s idea of public reason. The article highlights liberal and republican elements in Habermas’s concept of public sphere, and emphasises that liberal concepts of democracy require public reason as a device of justification of constitutional norms, while the republican idea of popular sovereignty opens up the popular public sphere. The second part of the article describes the tension between the counterfactual nature of Habermas’s discourse ethics and its practical realisation in deliberative politics in institutions of the state.

Digital public sphere: weaknesses and challenges

Despite the conceptual difficulties and complex configuration, the concept of public sphere has dominated much of the recent literature in areas such as political sciences, cultural studies, communication sciences and sociology of new media...

‘Being’ in Al-Azhar Park: Public Spaces in Cairo

There is a broad literature on public space and landscape and their socio-political construction, though it is not usually linked to the more contentious political theory concept of public sphere. The dual understanding of public space/sphere bears on relationships of inclusion and exclusion, where public space is seen as normatively desirable, inclusionary and offering the chances of unmediated encounters. It is important to see how far these concepts can go in understanding parks as public spaces in the setting of Cairo. The paper argues that the emergence of modern public spaces in Cairo is necessary to understand the meaning of being in parks. The paper tackles Al-Azhar park - one of the celebrated examples of recent public spaces in Cairo- as a reference to discuss the nature of emerging new public spaces in the city, with a focus on the way this space re-enforces politics of inclusion and exclusion, the nature of power relations that underlay the landscape and the social practice within it. The question of the park as a potentially politicized public space as opposed to more salient spaces of contestation in Cairo is tackled. The case of Al-Azhar park helps to problematize the notion of parks as public spaces as it gets to be applied to various contexts.

Publicly funded research: A participative experience from the Chilean Native Forest Research Fund

The concept of public sphere, as put forward by Jürgen Habermas, is an ideal that is difficult to perceive in day-to-day practice. This paper attempts to find, through the study of a specific process of public research fund allocation in the native forest sector of Chile, an approximation of Habermas' public sphere. Chilean Native Forest Legislation has created policy instruments that encourage the participation of civil society in the determination of native forest policies, and established the Native Forest Research Fund, which is instrumental to the application of regulations. Examining the process of research priority setting and the Native Forest Research Fund reveals evidence of communicative action — action oriented at reaching understandings and not personal benefits; supporting the Habermasian ideal. However, strategic behavior of participants from civil society in the process of managing the research fund is also found. Our results offer a starting point towards achieving the Habermasian ideal within forestry-related policy processes in Chile.

Political discourse on social networking sites: Sentiment, in-group/out-group orientation and rationality

The news feeds of two U.S. politicians' Facebook sites were examined across 22 months leading up to an election in order to explore changes in social-network-mediated public political discourse over time. Changes over time were observed in who was being addressed and in the affective valence of comments. A complex flow of attention between in-group and out-group concerns was observed, with in-group comments dominant both in early and late phases. Also, positive comments decreased and negative comments increased over time. These phenomena, dubbed reflection-to-selection and converging sentiment, were refined to explain the observed nonlinearities. The flow of rational versus affective comments in politicians' Facebook data across time was also explored. Comments reflecting cognition were more prevalent at all times than comments reflecting affect, but their distribution also varied in complex ways over time. Finally, the concept of potential public sphere in contrast to realized public sphere in virtual spaces is introduced.

Fungsi Media Online Sebagai Media Literasi Budaya Bagi Generasi Muda

<p align="center">Online media as an alternative media expected to fulfill the function of the mass media as the previous conventional media, among others, to meet the needs of information all at once into a medium that is able to educate its users. A website called <a href="http://www.palingindonesia.com/">www.palingindonesia.com</a> seeks to encourage young people to participate actively to share the experience and knowledge of Indonesian culture through writing. Using a qualitative content analysis this study aims to identify the educational messages on website <a href="http://www.palingindonesia.com/">www.palingindonesia.com</a> with the conception of internet and public sphere as a ground theory that focusing texts as an object. Mayring methods is choosen to analyze the text by combined lexico grammatical, context analysis, and intepretation. This study resulted a conclusion that the function of culture media literacy can be run on online media <a href="http://www.palingindonesia.com/">www.palingindonesia.com</a></p>

Why read the regional press today?

A pesar de un declive continuo en sus ventas, la prensa diaria y semanal regional permanece en Francia como el tipo de prensa de información más leída, muy por delante de los diarios nacionales y las revistas de información. Este artículo busca comprender por qué se lee hoy en día la prensa local. Extraído de mi tesis, los resultados surgieron de entrevistas con los lectores así como de un análisis de contenido de la prensa regional bretona. Las motivaciones para leer periódicos regionales permanecen estables en el tiempo. Para empezar, uno no elije su «periódico preferido»: frecuentemente, se hereda la lectura de los padres, o bien, se lee lo que está disponible en el lugar donde se come. Existen, a continuación, dos maneras de leer un regional. Una lectura geográfica que reenvía a las diferentes escalas del territorio y una lectura temática, que descansa sobre los centros de interés (información-servicios, resultados deportivos, obituarios…). Tanto en un caso como en el otro, la prensa regional aparece lejos de la misión de animadora del espacio público local que reivindica. No participa menos en el mantenimiento de un entramado social elemental que pasa por la transmisión de informaciones prácticas y noticias detalladas. La prensa regional no puede considerarse como la única representante del espacio público, pero constituye un elemento de la misma. Desde el punto de vista del lector, es un complemento de otros medios de comunicación, notablemente los digitales y las conversaciones cotidianas. Esta constatación es una invitación a redefinir el espacio público de una manera más abierta, fragmentada y dinámica. Esto puede alcanzarse abriendo la concepción del espacio público a nuevas dimensiones, tales como los intercambios orales diarios (Arendt), la articulación entre las escalas de territorio (Lacoste) y los procesos de socialización (Elias, Percherón), donde lo local es el lugar privilegiado.

Public Sphere Dialogue in Online Newspapers and Social Spaces: The Nuclear Debate in Post Fukushima France

The meltdown at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (March 2011) provided a trigger to contribute this research about the ways in which French newspapers facilitate (or not) a public dialogue on the issue of nuclear energy. Nuclear power not only generates over 75% of the electricity in France but also sustains a healthy domestic job creation program and drives nuclear technology exports. Hence, the absence of public debate amongst the French in nuclear energy over the long term is not surprising. Against this backdrop of French nuclear interests and post Fukushima, this paper presents a French language computer-mediated discourse analysis on nuclear debates and discussions taking place online in the hybrid public sphere. This space straddles user-generated content in the public comment spaces of newspapers embracing the spectrum of political persuasions (Le Figaro, Le Monde and Liberation) and social media. 
 Qualitative and quantitative research methods uncover citizen interactions within the online public sphere comprising newspapers. Findings illuminate the progress of deliberations on nuclear power in online newspapers following a process of agenda setting through news stories, providing space for public dialogue and the digital curating of social media commentary. Furthermore, the research reveals the relevance of the Habermasian public sphere concept within the context of online newspapers. Key learning for the role of the media in fostering the democratic process using social media and insights for the political communications landscape within the context of the nuclear debate compliment the research.

The Orientational Transformations in Any Public Sphere: Deweyan Thoughts on Habermas, Habits, and Free Communication

Jurgen Habermas's conception of public sphere has been of doubtless importance for those interested in intersection between communication, argument, and ideal sort of community we ought to form. In The Structural Transformation of Public Sphere, Habermas (1962/1989) recounts devolution of public sphere from free-wheeling and politically important coffee houses, salons, and reading societies to highly mediated and money-saturated form evident in mid-twentieth century west. Habermas's theme seems to be one that many might agree with. The ideal public engages freely in rational-critical debate over vital political issues of day, and such an ideal can be thwarted by presence of money, staged politics, and manipulative endeavors such as political advertising and spin. Habermas's (1962/1989) story presents as main villains parties and special interest associations (p. 209), who tend to use mass media to one-sidedly present attractive slogans and arguments, but not to discuss them in maximally public sense of reasoned debate that Habermas (and many of his detractors, I might add) would find ideal. His account effectively ends with decline of public sphere, and with hope of its revival lying in actualization of two conditions: (a) the objectively possible minimizing of bureaucratic decisions and (b) relativizing of structural conflicts of interest according to standard of a universal interest everyone can acknowledge (Habermas, 1962/1989, p. 235). If we agree with Habermas's idealization of free communication, stage is set for us to do something about it by challenging, critiquing, and reconstructing form of public arena so as to reduce distorting forces (such as money and ideology) and structural conflicts of ends and goals. In other words, Habermas's payoff seems to be a focus on reforming material organization of society. As a pragmatist in Deweyan spirit, I do not wholly disagree with value of such a view. Yet I must demur as to one-sided reading of public sphere, its problems, and paths to its melioration that such a common reading of this work might encourage. Lenore Langsdorf (2002) has espoused a similar worry over lack of meliorative resources in Habermas's privileging of representative in his communicative theory. Pragmatists will demand that any reading of ideal of public sphere provide a workable and comprehensive account of how actual present situation can be meliorated. John Dewey, a figure Habermas did not read until later in his career, diagnoses a similar problem of eclipse or decline of public. The consonances here are so striking that Habermas (2002) later indicated that Dewey's The Public and its Problems (1927/1984) could have been a major source for my Structural Transformation of Public Sphere (p. 228). In this work Dewey highlights misuse of press and decline of public in our democratic system, but he continues his life-long fascination with another aspect to puzzle of public sphere: habits, attitudes, or orientations of those comprising actual communities. Part of recovery of public lies in how we reconstruct our habits of inquiry and interaction, a point I have drawn out of his enigmatic comments concerning Great Community (Stroud, 2008, 2011a). This emphasis on orientation of participants in public sphere is not absent from Habermas, but it is easily overlooked in favor of a clean, high-altitude reading of social transformation and change. In his magisterial two volume work, The Theory of Communicative Action (1984, 1987), he augments his account of public sphere with a reading of ever-present orientational choice in linguistic interaction--namely, between linguistic action oriented toward achieving certain goals or ends and action orientated toward reaching understanding with one's conversational other. …

Art, politics and the public sphere

Abstract The relationship between contemporary art in the tradition of the avant-garde, politics and the public domain is the subject of this article. By looking at critical social theory, especially the work of Chantal Mouffe, the relationship between politics and the public sphere will be explored. Via the work of Paulo Virno and Niklas Luhmann, I will get more grip on avant-garde art’s functioning in society and its relationship with politics and the public sphere. By discussing the insights of these theorists it will be argued that the contemporary art world – as a sphere of concrete museums, biennials, exhibitions, etc. form a public sphere of many different singularities, artistic styles and sometimes even conflicting paradigms and cultures. Contrary to the classic Habermasian view (1989) this public sphere is seen as an agonistic one in which a multitude of conflicting voices coexist. Contemporary art in the tradition of the avant-garde time and again posits a ‘dismeasure’ within a culture and will therefore take up a minority position within a society. This does however allow this art scene to become a model for a specific interpretation of democracy, especially a minority democracy, in which collective support for emerging singular voices has to be gained time and again. The argumentation needed to grow from the singular base to a somewhat or very much larger collective base is the core of a minority democracy within an agonistic public sphere. This view is at odds with the concept of public sphere mostly held nowadays according to the rules of the dominant liberal representative democracy, which, after all, found its legitimacy on anonymous numbers (the majority of votes) and the third way of compromise. But also hegemonic political regimes of today, such as neo-liberalism and the upcoming neo-nationalism, are concerned about agonistic spheres, because from their perspective they are still difficult to control. It is one of the reasons why such ideologies hardly know how to respond to contemporary avant-garde art.

Costituzione e sfera pubblica: tra differenziazione sistemica, inclusione e riconoscimento

After a short criticism to the very often inflationary and metaphorical use of concepts like Constitution and the author describes the essentially modern aspects of the concept of constitution, linking the constitutional semantic with its structures. The concept of pluralistic public sphere is defined in terms of a structural dissent arena focused on problems concerning the juridical-constitutional and political procedures. On this basis the author discusses the current problems concerning the relationships between public sphere and constitutional procedures in the democratic Rechtstaat, emphasizing the difficulties generated by the new global trends of exclusion and of non-recognitions. In such a way, inclusion and recognition are characterized as prerequisite of a pluralist public sphere. Finally the author underlines the boundaries and the limits of the pluralistic public sphere, and therefore the danger that it become obsolete in the context of the structural evolutions of the global society.

Estratégias de responsabilidade social e esfera pública: um debate sobre stakeholders e dimensões sociopolíticas de ações empresariais

Os autores apresentam um argumento favorável ao desenvolvimento de pesquisas fundamentadas no diálogo entre diferentes perspectivas epistemológicas objetivando uma compreensão mais adequada das estratégias de responsabilidade social empresarial (RSE) e seus impactos sobre a esfera pública. A justificativa para tal argumentação está associada ao crescimento das ações de RSE no Brasil desde o final da década de 1990, como um reflexo do avanço da globalização e o aumento do poder das grandes empresas ante o Estado e a sociedade civil. O artigo destaca a limitação de grande parte da literatura de RSE em reconhecer estratégias voltadas para stakeholders como um fenômeno equivocadamente centrado na empresa, desconhecendo relevantes questões mais amplas associadas a dimensões políticas e sociais.

Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie (1034–1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen (review)

Reviewed by: Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie (1034–1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen Martin Hofmann (bio) Christian Meyer. Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nördlichen Song-Dynastie (1034–1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, vol. 58. Sankt Augustin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2008. 646 pp. Hardcover €65.00, ISBN 978-3-8050-0551-7. This monograph is a multifaceted and in-depth study of the debates on ritual practices at the Chinese court between 1034 and 1093. This period is primarily known for its lively discussions on political reforms initiated by Fan Zhongyan and Wang Anshi, the development of Neo-Confucian philosophy, the growing importance of the examination system, and the rise of the literati. Yet, as Meyer rightly claims (pp. 28–29), the ritual debates (Ritendiskussionen) of that time, their relation to social and political issues, and their place in the reflections of prominent Neo-Confucian thinkers have not received much attention. Meyer splits his exhaustive study into four main parts and a summary of results. The first part considers the meaning of the term li (rites, ritual, propriety) and, primarily drawing on the findings of the German sinologist Werner Eich-horn, sketches out the system of imperial court rituals of the Song dynasty. This section can be read as a general introduction to the subject of li from antiquity through the Song period, yet at times one wishes for more clarity with regard to the relevance of particular details to the overall argument of this study. In the second part, Meyer turns to the core topic of his book, the Northern Song debates on the court rituals. He singles out four major issues: the debate on the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth, including the discussion on the Bright Hall (mingtang); the debate on ritual music; the debate on the veneration of Prince Pu; and the debate on the mourning ritual for the deceased chancellor Sima Guang. The sources on these controversies are scattered and fragmentary, and so one of Meyer’s major achievements is having meticulously compiled the available materials and offering careful translations and detailed paraphrases. In this way, this section offers an informative overview of the particular minutiae considered in these debates — from the color of the curtains to the sound of the bells. Moreover, the section effectively demonstrates that arguments and eventually decisions were often subject to a large array of conflicting considerations, from exegesis of the Confucian classics, through the interpretation of omens, to the pragmatic concerns of economy and power struggles. Despite the strengths of this section, the author simply lists a litany of proposals and decrees in chronological order without providing much analytical context, thereby running the risk of overburdening the reader. Particularly with respect to the exhaustive debates on the Heaven and Earth sacrifices and on ritual music, the short introductions to the key points of contention hardly suffice to guide the reader through the section’s extensive account of the deliberations. [End Page 218] In the attempt to analyze and contextualize the four debates, the third part begins with a description of what Meyer terms the “ritual identity of the shidafu”1 (scholar-officials) (p. 306). This section no longer focuses on court rituals but explains what implications li had, in a broader sense, for the self-perception of the shidafu during the Northern Song. The argument claims that engaging in discourses on li reassured the participants of their social and political relevance and fostered cohesion among them. Following a brief introduction to the institutional framework of the debates at the Song court, Meyer returns to his core subject, the court rituals, and analyzes the roles of different protagonists such as the emperor, chancellors and ministers, censors, court officials, and external experts. Shifting the focus once more, Meyer then turns to some interesting reflections on the applicability of the Habermasian notion of public sphere to the Chinese context. He thereby addresses the contentious question of whether China has, or ever had, such a public sphere. Meyer convincingly concludes that neither Habermas’ concept of representative public sphere nor that of bourgeois public sphere is well suited to describe Northern Song society. Based on...

A esfera pública e as proteções legais anti-racismo no Brasil

This paper starts from the analytical theoretical presupposition that a better understanding of the issue of the effectiveness of rule of law in constitutional democracies depends on the analysis and reconstruction of the internal connections between rule of law, the dynamics of the public sphere, and democracy itself. The thematization and public controversies over problems that already are or should already be regulated by the existing laws can trigger judicial processes that envisage the more concrete configuration of the prevailing system of rights. Taking recourse to this analytical theoretical premise implies going beyond mere diagnosis of non-rule of law in Latin American countries in general and in Brazil in particular. Our hypothesis –grounded initially on the critical theory of society formulated by Jurgen Habermas, particularly on his concept of public sphere – asked us to see what is really happening in the relationship between civil society and state, and then try to see if the growth of discussion about racial problems in the public sphere, as well as the increase of organization of the black movement, produced in the last years some changes in the legal institutions.

Esfera pública e democracia deliberativa em Habermas: modelo teórico e discursos críticos

Os argumentos a favor da concepção deliberativa de esfera pública e democracia têm sido alvos de muitas críticas. Muitos teóricos que se ocupam com teorias democráticas têm questionado as assunções básicas da teoria política deliberativa que resulta da obra sobre Faktizität und Geltung (1992), apontando pontos frágeis, sobre as implicações práticas, possibilidades de efetividade, entre outros. Embora não seja possível acompanhar em toda sua amplitude a bibliografia crítica sobre o tema, para nossos propósitos, vamos aqui nos limitar a apresentar alguns comentários acerca das controvérsias envolvendo as concepções de esfera pública e democracia deliberativa que resultam da obra sobre direito e democracia; questões que se tornaram problemáticas para a literatura e que poderiam ser melhor investigadas.