An Essay on Habermas' Concept of the "Public Sphere"

European Journal of Social Theory, 2001

Given powerful globalizing processes under way, the topic of how to conceptualize the modern public sphere is becoming increasingly urgent. Amidst the array of alternatives, the efforts of Jürgen Habermas to attempt to balance out the two main conceptual requirements of this idea, a universalistic construction of the principle of shared interests and a sensitivity to the fact of modern pluralism, might seem a particularly promising option. In order to reconstruct the main motivations of, and to determine a set of criteria of assessment for, Habermas's ongoing attempt to outline a theory of the public sphere adequate to the conditions of the present, the article turns first to a discussion of the seminal formulations of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. I suggest that the later writings are only partially successful in their attempt to redress some of the main conceptual difficulties that emerge in this early account.

The following paper deals with Habermas's critique of the public sphere

German Studies Review, 1994

Habermas and the public sphere I edited by Craig Calhoun. Thomas McCarthy p. cm.-(Studies in contemporary German social thought) Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0 7453 2089 9 hardback ISBN 0 7453 2088 0 paperback Goode, Luke, 1971-Jürgen Habermas : democracy and the public sphere / Luke Goode. p. cm. --(Modern European thinkers) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-7453-2089-9 (hb) --ISBN 0-7453-2088-0 (pb) 1. Habermas, Jürgen. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. 2. Sociology--Methodology. 3. Democracy. 4. Mass media--Political aspects. 5. Political participation. 6. Political sociology. 7. Internet--Political aspects. I. Title. II. Series.

2006

Habermas If we are to believe what many sociologists are telling us, the public sphere is in a near-terminal state. Our ability to build solidarities with strangers and to agree on the general significance of needs and problems seems to be collapsing. These cultural potentials ...

2011

The main purpose of this paper is to examine Habermas's account of the transformation of the public sphere in modern society. More specifically, the study aims to demonstrate that, whilst Habermas's approach succeeds in offering useful insights into the structural transformation of the public sphere in the early modern period, it does not provide an adequate theoretical framework for understanding the structural transformation of public spheres in late modern societies. To the extent that the gradual differentiation of social life manifests itself in the proliferation of multiple public spheres, a critical theory of public normativity needs to confront the challenges posed by the material and ideological complexity of late modernity in order to account for the polycentric nature of advanced societies. With the aim of showing this, the paper is divided into three sections. The first section elucidates the sociological meaning of the public/private dichotomy. The second section scrutinizes the key features of Habermas's theory of the public sphere by reflecting on (i) the concept of the public sphere, (ii) the normative specificity of the bourgeois public sphere, and (iii) the structural transformation of the public sphere in modern society. The third section explores the most substantial shortcomings of Habermas's theory of the public sphere, particularly its inability to explain the historical emergence and political function of differentiated public spheres in advanced societies.

The American Sociologist, 2009

Constellations 3, no. 3 (January 1997): 377–400.

Communicative reason is of course a rocking hullbut it does not go under in the sea of contingencies, even if shuddering in high seas is the only mode in which it 'copes' with these contingencies.