Public Sphere in the Age of Conflicts and Systemic Crises, Vol. 31 - 2024, No. 1
Guest Edited by Bart Cammaerts, Risto Kunelius, Hannu Nieminen, and Slavko Splichal
The Rise of Contractual Publics
CONCEPTUAL CRISIS AND THE TECH-DRIVEN SIEGE OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE
The paper examines modern re-conceptualisations and re-contextualisations of publicness, proposing theoretical and empirical advancements in its conceptualisation. It critically analyses two significant developments following the English translation of Habermas’s seminal work, “Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit.” On the one hand, the book (re)affirmed the key role of communication and media in democratic politics and instigated a broad acceptance of the public sphere as a fundamental concept in academic discourse, leading to renewed research efforts and innovative developments. However, the subsequent conceptual fragmentation of (the concept of) the public sphere raised concerns about the loss of its original critical epistemic value. On the other hand, Habermas’s book obscured important sociological traditions, contributing to a divide between normative theory and sociological analysis, exemplified by a neglect of the habitual roots of public opinion and contractual bonds in the evolution of publics. These aspects gain relevance within the context of the platform economy and artificial intelligence governing internet communication. The paper concludes by introducing the concept of the contractual public, which draws on the evolving dynamics between public and private spheres, and proposing four strategies to revitalise publicness.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Defending Democracy Against Populist Neo-Fascist Attacks: The Role and Problems of Public Sphere Theory
In the wake of the recent attacks on democracy by a re-invigorated populist neo-fascism there is a pressing need to articulate a middle ground position in debates between the public sphere paradigm and its critiques. This requires an engagement with tensions between consensus and conflict, rationality and emotion, and the system and the lifeworld. Furthermore, there is also a need to scrutinize the role of hybrid media system in promoting populist neo-fascist discourses and actors, but also assert its normative task to combat it. Whereas conflict and power cannot be eradicated from the political, conflict is also a destructive force which requires a set of agreed upon ethico-political principles in order for a radical democracy to function. It is also argued that emotions need to be part of the democratic fight-back, but it is also suggested that a critical realist disposition combining epistemic relativism with judgmental rationality will be crucial to counter the relativism on steroids practiced by neo-fascist actors. Finally, the hybrid media system needs to be reconnected with the lifeworld, citizen interests and democratic values through a new regulatory framework, and the tradition of public journalism could provide inspiration for a democratic fightback from within the media system.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
On Communicative Rationality with Passion
This paper reflects on the reception and application of Habermas’ concept of the public sphere in media and communication studies at various points in recent history. It argues that it is urgent to focus the scholarly community’s intellectual efforts not on decrying the utopian nature of the concept, but on salvaging and honing its normative edge. Its central philosophical kernel, rational-critical debate, and its connection to concepts such as communicative action, communicative rationality and deliberation developed in Habermas’ later works, need to be re-examined and re-asserted as a vital criterion of democratic public communication. In defence of this argument, some of the most influential critiques of the public sphere model—its alleged neglect of emotions and conflict—are examined and challenged. The pathologies of the current space of mediatised public communication, it is argued, should be understood as symptoms of the erosion of communicative rationality and the ideal of the public sphere from the social imaginary.
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article
The Post-Public Sphere and Neo-Regulation of Digital Platforms
This article discusses the post-public sphere and the regulation of platforms that have had disruptive effects on democracy. Platformisation means that the normative ideals for a political public sphere set out by Jürgen Habermas face a distinctive challenge. “Neo-regulation” is an evolving adaption by states that reflects the urgent need to address platformisation and digitalisation more generally. In conditions of geopolitical competition, notably between the China and US, attempts by various states and the EU to establish a neo-regulatory order has developed a significant national security dimension, which is highly relevant for the regulation of digital communication. Policing borders and content is an ever-present focus in all political regimes, whether characterised as democratic or authoritarian. Applying Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory to internet regulation, the argument is illustrated by reference to current British regulatory practice. At the level of the state, the “regulatory field” is shaped by national and global forces. Although the British case has specific characteristics, the underlying analysis has general relevance for comparative research.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Making Generative Artificial Intelligence a Public Problem. Seeing Publics and Sociotechnical Problem-Making in Three Scenes of AI Failure
Although Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has rapidly gained popular attention as something to worry about or be excited by, it is less clear if or how it is a public problem, and what ideals of publicness it illustrates, challenges, or invents. By developing the idea that GenAI is simultaneously an object and agent of public life, by describing how its failures are constructed and animated in three sociotechnical scenes, and by examining those scenes of failure for evidence of publicness, I trace how GenAI might be made into a public problem, and a problem for different ideals of publicness. Tracing how GenAI failures are narrated by charismatic figures, indexed by activists and policymakers, and avoided and repaired by journalists, I suggest that GenAI’s public significance stems from its dual identity as both an ontological and epistemological concern and show how that duality plays out in failures that illustrate, combine, and extend ideals of the public.
Full text (available at Taylor & Francis) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Datafied Empiricism Versus Normative Publicness: A Philosophical Grounding for Assessing the Influence of New Technologies on the Digital Public Sphere
New technologies of algorithmisation, data mining, and artificial intelligence appear to elicit contentious impacts on the public sphere. Evaluations of these effects frequently diverge. A noticeable schism exists between critical/normative perspective, which highlights the problematic aspects of data exploitation, surveillance, and imperialism, and market-oriented empirical approaches. Drawing on a conceptual–historical argumentation that links current developments to a longer tradition of social communication research rooted in Enlightenment philosophy, the article highlights the contrast between the normative conceptualisations of publicness and public use of reason on the one hand, and empirical approaches aimed at measuring and managing the public(s) and public opinion on the other. The article first identifies the role of the opposition between Humean empiricism, which is based on the principle of conformity to past habits, and Kantian pure law of publicity, which is systematically opposed to such empiricism on many different layers. This opposition is also rooted in the Enlightenment foundational divide between religious and civil communities. It seems that today, with the predominance of data-driven approaches in adapting opinion to past expectations and beliefs, we are paradoxically again returning to the principles similar to those of functioning of pre-modern (religion- and tradition-based) communities.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Why Does Disinformation Spread in Liberal Democracies? The Relationship between Disinformation Inequality and the Media
In principle, liberal democracy is about an equal right to decision-making and presumes a public sphere, equally open to all. However, in practice, this normative ideal, articulated, among others, by Jürgen Habermas and John Dewey, is farther away today than ever since WWII. The “real” public sphere, distinguished from its ideal, is harmed by conflicting and divisive interests, often presenting themselves in the form of information campaigns targeting the most vulnerable groups of society. The information offered is often labelled as disinformation, i.e. information that is misleading or purposefully false. However, this article claims that we must distinguish between different uses of the concept of disinformation. Although disinformation campaigns are increasingly harmful for democracy, the label of disinformation can be used to silence necessary critical voices and movements in society, thus promoting a public sphere based on a forced consensus. This article focuses on current European developments, although there are references to the developments in other continents as well. It is based on a review of recent research publications and public policy documents about different aspects of disinformation and inequality.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Against Resilience: The (Anti-)Ethics of Participation in an Unjust and Unequal Public Sphere
If we define public spheres as social spaces in families, media, governance and policy making, workplaces, colleges, schools, places of worship and leisure where people can participate in sociopolitical debate and action, it is important to understand how imbalanced architectures of power ensure that the affective and physical costs of participation are higher for some than for others. While critiques of Habermas have engaged these power imbalances and their effects on the putative notions of the public sphere, public spheres and counter-publics, the notion of public and individual resilience continues to be invoked in a celebratory mode for communities and environments that survive and thrive despite political repression. Drawing on interviews and focus groups about disinformation and hate in legacy and social media, and on scholarship about resilience from health and ecology, my paper historicises and critiques the notion of resilience as currently deployed in communications and social theory. Based on this analysis, I argue that the concept of resilience now serves mainly to elude or defang valid and varied critiques of communicative inequality, discrimination and violence in the devastatingly flawed contemporary public sphere, while also feeding into double-edged celebrations of recognition as empowerment and neoliberal becoming.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
The Caring Public Sphere: Reframing the Concept in an Era of Care Crises
This article reframes the public sphere concept by bringing it dialogue with feminist theories of care. Care ethics foreground vulnerability and interdependence, suggesting that vulnerability is a shared condition and that we are all dependent on each other in order to survive. This helps to rethink the role of the public sphere within the democratic system, as a space not only for opinion formation, but also for the development of citizens with the necessary skills and dispositions to take care of the issues discussed in public. A focus on care also aids in reconsidering public affairs as issues that are intimately connected with needs and vulnerabilities; listening as an act of care; the processing of emotions as a key function of the deliberative process; and personal testimony as an important type of argumentation. The concept of care further helps in refining the universal access principle by highlighting the importance of intimate spaces, where participants feel safe to be vulnerable, and of how these multiple publics can be interconnected through mobilising relationships of interdependence. Finally, it allows us to consider “care work” for communication infrastructure, including both media technologies and people’s bodies, as a constitutive part of the public sphere.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article
Durability in Inequality Discourse in the UK Public Sphere 2008–2023
In this paper, we reflect on how the development and mutations of debates on economic inequality since 2008 reveal striking features regarding the nature and dynamics of the UK public sphere in a time of intersecting crises. We show how economic inequality is an important case study. We draw attention to the dynamic qualities of public debate in the period 2008–2015, in which there was major cross over between academic research, intellectual debate and public engagement. Even though this debate has become less vibrant since 2015 and has been substantially disrupted by “culture war” discourse, it has not been completely closed down. We argue that economic inequality issues have endured through the stabilisation by which key institutional agents have made it a central part of their field positioning. Our contribution is to offer a counterpart to pessimistic conceptions of the public sphere by drawing attention to the durability of economic inequality discussions even after the initiating crises which inspired these discussions have faded.
Full text (PDF/ePub) | Export Reference | Link to this article