Public Sphere

Annotations:

• “The Structural transformation of the Public Sphere” 主要回答的问题： What are the social conditions for a rational-critical debate about public issues conducted by private persons willing to let arguments and not statues determine decisions?

1. Two-sided consititution
   1. quality

      Annotations:

      • the form of  rational-critical discourse
   2. quantity

      Annotations:

      • the openness to particular participation
2. Background
   1. an abstraction

      Annotations:

      • "A sphere which mediates between society and state...made possible the democratic control of state activities" (Habermas, 1974:50)
   2. Building on Frankfurter School

      Annotations:

      • "reground in order to get out of  the pessimistic cul de sac in which Horkheimer and Adorno found themselves in the postwar era" (Calhoun, 1992:5)
   3. a historically specific phenomenon
3. history inquiry
   1. Explores the notion of publicness and public opinion formation
   2. Historical analysis of the emergence and demise of the bourgeois public sphere
      1. Feudal Publicness

         Annotations:

         • One-sided (the monarch) and demonstrative  Absolute power of the Monarch
      2. Bourgeois public sphere

         Annotations:

         • Fraser,2003: 'a space for the communicative generation of public opinion, in ways that are supposed to assure (at least some degree of) moralpolitical validity. Thus, it matters who participates and on what terms. In addition, a public sphere is supposed to be a vehicle for mobilizing public opinion as a political force. It should empower the citizenry vis-à-vis private powers and permit it to exercise influence over the state’.
   3. Attempts to synthesise liberalism, republicanism (social contract) and marxist analysis
4. Calhoun’'s critique

   Annotations:

   • 1. does not treat the classical bourgeois public sphere and the postransformation public sphere of organized or late capitalism symmetrically. (too negative about mass media) 2.His treatment of culture and identity. (inattention to culture variation in his empirical accounts, little regard to national or other cultural specificity. 3.degeneration of the public sphere
5. public and private

1. Mills & HUtchins: Liberal democratic model

   Annotations:

   • Public Sphere = the marketplace of ideas, the space where individuals exert formal and informal control Society = aggregation of equal individuals, of active citizens
2. Gramsci& Poulantzas: Neo-Marxist critiques

   Annotations:

   • Public Sphere = the space where class domination is institutionalised Society = being controlled by a dominant bourgeois elite that fosters structural inequality in order to preserve their privileges

Annotations:

• Villa (1992: 712) describes the public sphere as ‘a discursive arena that is home to citizen debate, deliberation, agreement and action‘.

1. mass media (print)
   1. Literary PS to political PS

      Annotations:

      • newspaper, journals coffee shop and salons (bridging the literacy PS dominated by aristocrats with the emergent bourgeois political public sphere.
      1. 1. social intercourse disregarded status altogether
      2. 2.rational argument was the sole arbiter of any issue
      3. 3. focusing on all matters of common concern
      4. 4. the emerging public established itself as inclusive in principle
2. the Internet (online media)
   1. Pro

      Annotations:

      • see PPT p33
      1. Kellner,2005
      2. Dahlberg,2001
      3. Coleman and Gøtze, 2001
   2. Against

      Annotations:

      • see PPT p34-35
      1. Willhelm,2000
      2. Cammaerts and Van Audenhove, 2005
      3. Dean,2001

Annotations:

• The PS and dialogue is deemed a prerequisite for a strong democracy that is representative in nature

1. deliberative model
2. Agonistic pluralism

1. Methodological
   1. Calhoun,1992

      Annotations:

      • "Uses a descriptive mode of analysis to construct an ideal public sphere and is normative in depicting it"
   2. Curran,1991

      Annotations:

      • "Is criticised for taking the version of British history of 19th century historians at face value"
2. Feminist
   1. Fraser,1992

      Annotations:

      • "educated, propertied men, and they conducted a discourse not only exclusive of others but prejudicial to the interests of those excluded." (Calhoun,1992:3). we can no longer assume that the bourgeois  conception of the public sphere was simply an unrealized utopian ideal; it was also a masculinist ideological notion that functioned to legitimate an emergent form of class rule’
3. Political and democratic theory
   1. Transnational public sphere

      Annotations:

      • Steenbergen 1994; Bauböck 1994; Hauben 1995; Linklater 1999; Sassen 2002
4. culturalist and post-structralist
   1. Lyotard,1984

      Annotations:

      • Striving for a rational consensus, reinforces the hegemony and dominance of ruling elites (Lyotard, 1984)
   2. Noelle-Neumann,1984
      1. Spiral of Silence

         Annotations:

         • 沉默的螺旋的倒挂 （刷存在感，queer eye)
   3. Foucault, 1978

      Annotations:

      • "Power and conflict cannot be eliminated, it is constitutive of the political"
      1. power of language/discourse
   4. Mouffe, 1985/1999

      Annotations:

      • Consensus is always a temporary ceasefire, or as Mouffe (1999: 755) formulates it, they are ‘temporary respites in an ongoing confrontation’ Passions are as important for politics and political participation than consensus (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985)
      1. agonistic pluralism : agonistic public sphere
5. post-colonial
   1. Newell,2013; Amaya,2013

      Annotations:

      • African Public Sphere? Latino Public Sphere? 是否存在？ PPT ，P32