“This essay has a public. If you are reading this, you are
part of its public. So first let me say: Welcome. Of course you might stop
reading and someone else might start. Would the public of this essay then be
different? Would it ever be possible to know anything about the public, to
which I hope you still belong? What is a public? It is a curiously obscure
question, considering that few things have been more important in the
development of modernity.”
Michael Warner, an American social theorist engages in a
debate regarding Habermas’ theory of ‘public sphere’ in his essay on Publics
and Counterpublics by first trying to define what a public is. And by
definition Public is a very convoluted term. It can be applied to people in
general, or a more concrete form of a theatre audience. The public is a kind of
social totality (M. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 2002).
Public Sphere - a
Historical Perspective
Jurgen Habermas provides a historical perspective to the term
Publics in his book the Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). He
states that a ‘public sphere, is a sphere of people who represent their own
private spheres but come together to form a public, here he introduces a term
called the bourgeois public sphere which is a controlled and oppressive sphere
of debate and discussion (social, political, moral) amongst the common public. The
history of the above mentioned public sphere and its differentiation from the
private sphere can be traced in philosophy as well as a study of language
(linguistics).
The bourgeois public sphere superseded another sphere which
existed in the middle ages till approximately the 18th century,
known as ‘representative publicity’. In this setting, the king or the ruler represented
his ideas and thoughts in front of his subjects who were bound to him by monarchy.
The public in this case was binary, the King was the only participating public,
the others just acting as spectators. Developments in the economic field have
aided in evolving the public sphere to a bourgeois public sphere. According to Habermas,
the capitalist modes of production as earlier stated by Marx changed social
relations between people and the state and further within the ambit of people,
and so did commodification of news as commodities – which were traded long
distance.
The development of a functional political public sphere took
place in the later half of the 18th century in Britain, during and
post the industrial revolution. This took shape in other European countries which
had bourgeois constitutions which put emphasis on public opinion to check
political domination. The developed and functional public sphere, therefore was
not totally independent, in the sense that it was dependent on various social
and economic conditions, which were not definite. It is in this concept of
public opinion that public sphere can be placed and interpreted.
Habermas goes on to state that this bourgeois public sphere
eroded eventually when the above mentioned indefinite social and economic
conditions changed. The lines between ruler and the ruled, society and state,
public and private blurred – leading to a new form of feudalisation. “A
‘refeudalization’ of the public sphere must be discussed in another, more exact
sense. The integration of mass entertainment and advertising, which in the form
of public relations already assumes a ‘political’ character, subjugates namely
even the state under its code. Because private companies suggest to their
customers in consumer decisions the consciousness of citizens, the state has to
‘appeal to’ its citizens like consumers. Thus the public use of violence also
solicits publicity”, Jurgen Habermas the Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere (1962).
Habermas’ Communicative
Rationality
Communicative Rationality is the rational discourse that
human beings keep up in order to avoid mutual annihilation. It is the outcome
of unifying and consensus building argumentative discourse in which the various
participants in the public sphere overcome their subjective views in favour of
a mutually beneficial decision. Habermas states that it is responsible people
who behave rationally. In the conception of communicative action – the people
who can orient themselves to intersubjectivity, that is transcend their own
subjectivities are considered responsible. Communicative rationality is a
necessary form of social understanding.
Critical analyses of the Public Sphere
The critics to Habermas’ conception of the
public sphere were mainly feminists like Seyla Benhabib and Joan Landes, who
state that separating public and private sphere, enforced patriarchal power
relations in conjugal family. Landes further states that during the 18th
and 19th century, the public sphere was exclusionary and closed for
women. “The exclusionary mentality of the bourgeois public is apparent in the
opposition to a women friendly salon culture that existed in Europe during
those times”, Landes, 1998.
Another argument has been furthered from
the feminist perspective – that issues pertaining to the female gender such as reproduction,
household work, maintaining a family, etc. have never been a part of the
critical discourse in public sphere. These duties have been “relegated to the
interiors of the household,” Hannah Arendt.
Another important critique to Habermas’ conception
of the public sphere is Nancy Fraser’s ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere: A
contribution to the Critique of actually existing democracy’. In the book she
states that the procedure of consensus building in the public sphere leaves out
diverse voices and identity claims in multi cultural societies. In a similar
fashion to Landes, Fraser denies the accessibility and democratic nature of the
bourgeois ‘masculinist’ public sphere. “Women of all classes and ethnicities
were excluded from official political participation on the basis of gender
status, while plebeian men were formally excluded by property classification”,
Fraser, 1988. Men and women belonging to different ethnicities were also
excluded from this public sphere on grounds of race. Secondly, Fraser critiques
the singular nature of bourgeois public sphere – which she suggests is of a nature
of consuming or snubbing the less powerful or divergent voices by the more
powerful voices. As a result, members of divergent groups such as – LGBT,
people of colour voice their opinions in alternative public spheres.
Thirdly, Habermas’ public sphere is
restricted to debate and discussions that pertain to common rationality, where
private concerns are not welcome. But it is extremely difficult to
differentiate between what is public matter and what is private – which can be
only arrived upon by discussion. Therefore, no issue according to Fraser should
be out of the ambit of public sphere.
Lastly, Fraser critiques the underlying
assumption of the public sphere that for a critical discourse, the civil
society and state should be separated. She suggests that this conception of the
bourgeois public sphere is not impregnable and what is needed is a ‘post –
bourgeois’ public sphere which is wider in its scope and accommodative.
Locating Habermas’ Public Sphere in Networked Society
In the contemporary world of internet and
the world wide web, a new form of society has developed based on social
networks and other online platforms. A network society is formed of individuals
who are autonomous and connect with other people online creating a space for
free and open discussion and debate. This discourse is not censored by the
state and any number of people can join and add their own individual
perspectives. This creates an open space for social, political discourse
forming a new kind of public sphere. Nowadays political activism is carried out
by both partisan as well as non partisan actors through innovative mediums like
blogs, Twitter, Facebook, online petitioning (change.org in India), etc. This
virtual space facilitates a more democratic political atmosphere. With the
networked society getting access to more information and more and more
‘publics’ joining this virtual discourse (through various platforms), a number
of countries have experienced social and political upheavals. Examples of such
can be cited in the 2011 Spanish and Greek uprising against anti-austerity
measures, which began with protesters demonstrating in a few Spanish cities, and
spread throughout the country in a matter of days with social media
mobilisation resulting in the ‘Indignados’ rebellion. The same thing was experienced
in Greece at the same time which was experiencing the Kínima Aganaktisménon-Politón, an
uprising by the citizens of the country against anti-austerity measures like
increasing taxes and cutting down public spending. The demonstrations in Greece
were being organized mainly by a group called ‘Direct Democracy Now!’ who made
extensive use of online portals. These movements driven by social media in the
two countries aimed at radical change in political discourse. In the context of
Habermas’ public sphere - social media and this virtual space have come to the
rescue of the common public, to assert individual action and make their voices
heard. The networked society gave form to a new platform for critical
discourse, which shaped public opinion within nations as well as beyond them. This
has been possible only because of the global feature of the internet.
Conclusion
With
time the nature of public sphere has changed due to the dramatic changes in the
structures of society and polity. Habermas, in the ‘Structural transformation
of the Public Sphere’ suggests that the contemporary influence of semi public groups
and organisations in the public sphere has led to a diminishing of the public
sphere, it needs to be created, it is not present anymore. The question remains
whether there is a re-emergence of feudalism again as he states or that it was
always present in some form or the other. Various theoreticians and
sociologists have examined the very existence of a public sphere. According to
certain theorists, public sphere exists only in discourse between publics. Seyla
Benhabib writes, “The public sphere comes into existence whenever and wherever
all affected by general social and political norms of action engage in a
practical discourse to evaluate their validity”.
