Jrgen Habermas's Public Sphere explained (summary)

Jrgen Habermas's concept of the public sphere is a realm within social life in
which public opinion can be formed and which is accessible to all. The engagement
within the public sphere according to Habermas is blind to class positions and the
connections between activists in the public sphere are formed through a mutual will to
take part in matters that have a general interest. The public sphere, according
to Habermas, is a product of democracy.

For Jrgen Habermas, the concept of "public opinion" is the control and criticism
of organized political authority which is officially manifested by the public come
elections. Habermas examines the history of the public sphere and hold that in medieval
times there existed no separation or distinction between the private and public sphere, due
to the class pyramid of the feudal system. This system for Habermas positioned greater
power at every level and to this day conventions regarding the ruler persisted, with
political authority retained by the highest levels. Rulers saw themselves as the state and
not as representatives of the state meaning that they represent their power to the people
and not for the people.

According to Habermas, by the late 18
th
century feudal institutions were finally
disappearing along with the church's rule, making way to public power which was given
autonomy. Rulers become public entities and professionalism bore the first signs of the
rule of the bourgeois which became autonomous in relation to the government.
Representational publicity was pushed over by a public force that formed around national
and territorial sentiments and individual struggling with public power found themselves
outside its collective power. The term "public" did not refer to the representation of a
man with authority, but rather became the legitimate power of exercising power. The
public sphere, according to Habermas, was the final stage of these developments.
Habermas sees the liberal model of the public sphere as something which is
unprecedented in history. Different state constitutions contain clauses specifying the
liberal model of the public sphere private people joining together to form a public and
thus mediate the relationship between the state and the bourgeois society in order to
supervise over and educate the political government. In the second half of the 18
th

century, Haberman holds, literary journalism is on the rise and it is no longer just a
supplier of news but rather a weapon in the politics of parties, taking on a new
journalistic vocation: editing. Information trade is now the name of the fame, trading
public opinion the quintessential symbol of the public sphere. In other words,
Habermas claims that the public sphere as we know it was formed when journalism
became a public institution with the aim of promoting public debate. Only after the
establishment of a democratic-bourgeois constitution could newspapers deal with public
opinion for the purpose of commerce and not only for taking sides in a social-political
debate (we are talking 1830's onwards). Due to the flow of private interests into the
newspapers and mass media did changes in the public sphere begin to take shape, such as
ideological content, commercials and so forth.

But according to Habermas, the liberal model of the public sphere does not sit
well with the modern industrialized democratic state, since the ideology involved with
this model of the public sphere is tied with values that have changed since the 18
th

century. Journalism and propaganda have expanded as well as the boundaries of the
public and the public sphere. In addition, the public has lost it cohesion due to the high
standards of meritocratic education which have created classes, gaps and conflicts which
once resided in the private sphere but have now migrated to the public sphere. The
private and public spheres have mixed with each other, social and political organizations
are now invading each other. Thus, according to Habermas, a new feudalization of the
public sphere is brought about.

The contemporary public sphere is characterized according to Habermas by the
weathering of its critical roles and capacities. In the past publicity was used to subject
people or the present political decisions to the public. Today the public sphere is recruited
for the use of hidden policies by interest groups. For Habermas, the principles of the
public sphere are weakening in the 20
th
century. The public is no longer made out of
masses of individuals but of organized people that institutionally exerting their influence
on the public sphere and debate.