Public Spheres in Contemporary Societies - Essay Example

The public sphere is redundant as a concept. Discuss Name of Student Institution Date The debate on public sphere in social theory is a considerably a topic of interest amongst scholars analysing various media of the public sphere. Habermas (2006) attached great significance to the use of rational critical discussion to reach consensus and thus making a democratic society legitimate. His point of concern was that media did not provide true impression of people’s engagement in a public sphere as it managed rights to speech and access in a way that was unfavorable to open discussion in the public (Lunt & Stenner, 2005). The concept of public sphere according to Maddison (2007) is considered as a social space for conducting rational and critical discussion about issues of that affect the public by private individuals ready to use arguments to determine decisions. The concept has been praised by the people who advocate for participatory democracy as a normative ideal, while on the other side, it has been criticised as being a working model, thus triggering many controversies (Grbesa, 2004). This essay explains how the concept is outmoded by exploring its most considerable inadequacies, especially its inability to explain political function in relation to distinct public spheres in contemporary societies. First, let us briefly examine the concept of public sphere as explained by Habermas. According to Habbermas, public sphere involves private individuals whose interconnection in the society enables them to discuss issues that affect the public (Habermas, 2006). Thus, both the public and private spheres can be seen to be mutually inclusive and not mutually exclusive social empires. Since human beings cannot ignore the different processes of socialization, given the nature of the environment they live in, privacy cannot, in any way, get rid of people’s reliance upon society (Susen 2011). Therefore, people can excise their privacy simply in relation to the existence of other people, but not in isolation of other people. In this regard, the public sphere is the socialized expression of jointly constituted autonomy of people (McNair, 2011). The significance of the public sphere, in a sociological dimension, can be seen to exist in its ability as an approach of integrating the society. In order for individuals’ to undertake social coordination, they must come out of their sustained private lives (Clawson & Oxley, 2008). According to Susen (2011) social coordination occurs between subjects who are interconnected and interdependent, and existing public spheres which are symbolically negotiated and constituted. Normally, deliberate organization is witnessed in the public sphere, which can be considered as a demonstration of the intrinsic sociability nature of human beings (Grbesa, 2004). Thus, it can be argued that societal integration cannot exist without the presence of public sphere. Although, the concept of public sphere by Habermas appears to be influential it has criticized in various way because of its key shortcomings, making it redundant. Habermas’ approach to the public sphere in respect to structural transformation is not outstanding and therefore it does not provide an appropriate theoretical framework that helps understand the complexity of public spheres in contemporary societies (Susen 2011). According to Grbesa (2004) the concept of public analysis focuses almost exclusively on bourgeois public life. Therefore, it is very challenging to reduce the complex nature of the contemporary public sphere to the confinement of the bourgeois public life which may lead to the misjudgment of the sociological importance of collective realms whose contribution to a rational-critical engagement of individuals with the world around them cannot be taken for granted (Susen 2011). Limiting the analysis of public spheres to almost exclusively to the bourgeois public sphere presents the possibility to exclude other significant public spheres in the definition of the concept (Maddox, 2005). In this sense, consolidating the bourgeois public sphere is considered to be ironic such that it purports to create a dialogue the interests of people as a whole, but practically meeting the particular interests of some groups that dominate in the society (Susen 2011). Alternatively, the claim that bourgeois public discourse in universal as expressed in French Revolution Slogan is still withheld in the pursuit of the interest of people in a specific class (Grbesa, 2004). This because the universality politics supported by the bourgeois public sphere actually represents the interests of a few, despite claims that it provides for the interests of all humanity (Susen 2011). According to Craig (2004) trying to examine social spheres which are generated and controlled by classes that dominate in the society would imply excluding collective spaces that are established and shaped by other social groups that play a significant role modeling contemporary public life. The picture of pubic sphere is somewhat presented unrealistically by Habermas. The fact that he emphasizes more on bourgeois public sphere is an attempt to overestimate the importance of the features of contemporary public life, unfortunately underestimating the influence of other elements within it that are repressive (Susen 2011). According to Moe (2009) the concept of public sphere is highly saturated by power relations as opposed to the entire society. Ideally, the nature of public discussions is built on how social resources are materially organized. In addition, how the resource of critique happens relies on the social resources of power in the society. The way the society is vertically structured explains how ideology is structured in the society. In other words, people who are socially positioned produce relationally dependent conversations (Maddox, 2005). Thus, the hegemonic conversations that originate within the bourgeois public spheres communicate the interests of particular people who are most powerful in the society. The conversations of people who are wealthy, educated and mostly male elites represents the particular interests of people who are most privileged in the society (Susen 2011). Therefore, Clawson and Oxley (2008) believe that an attempt to make the public sphere a communicative sphere which is rationally and critically inter-subjective implies undervaluing the significant contribution of interest-laden hierarchies in stratified societies. According to Susen (2011) the concept of public sphere does not, to a large extent, consider the issue of gender. However, following feminist critics, Habermas noted that it is hard to ignore the patriarchal nature of the contemporary public spheres in the Europe (Habermas, 2006). Ideally, gender inequality in Western societies is highly visible in masculinist and heterosexist forms of normativity and therefore it is a central aspect of contemporary public spheres. For example, the act of discriminating women within the contemporary public sphere and excluding them from certain positions of power, such as religious positions can be considered to be a display of the patriarchal type of society as a whole (Grbesa, 2004). It can also be considered to be an attempt to continue, in particular, the patriarchal character of the bourgeois public sphere. Therefore, although the public sphere does not take into account the issue of gender, there is need to consider the importance of division of power in respect to gender in the contemporary society while acknowledging the fact the contemporary public spheres must face the ubiquity of constructed form of patriarchy in the society (Susen, 2011). In the same perspective, the public sphere is based mainly on rationalistic assumptions. In regard to this, it is viewed as a continuation of the traditional society where male dominates their female counterparts (Craig, 2004). Still, the notion that the bourgeois public sphere is highly a manifest of continuous production of conversation which is rational and critical that allows the society to experience an emancipator potential, fails to recognize that people, can and should actually exercise rational instead of non-rational forms of engagement with people across the world (Susen, 2011). The concept of public sphere is also unnecessary because it facilitates a universalistic perception of the interest of the public based on the generalization of public life (Susen, 2011). The perception that the bourgeois public sphere stands for the public sphere of the modern society par excellence is reductive both conceptually and empirically (Moe, 2009). Indeed, the assumption does not consider the fact that contemporary society has numerous public spheres which simultaneously exist and usually compete. There is an increase in pluralization of contemporary public spheres, a reflection of the increase in differentiation of multifaceted societies (Grbesa, 2004). Contemporary public spheres, according to Susen (2011) highly differentiated and stratified spheres that interact with each other. For this reason, they constitute various social groups that occupy different positions in the society, such as subordinate positions including religious minorities, ethnic minorities, political minorities, and individuals in the working class to mention but a few (Maddox, 2005). Therefore, hiding the likelihood of creating public spheres which are polycentric in nature implies ignoring the normative possibilities of radical pluralism to originate from conversations in various public spheres and the competition that exist between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic practices (Susen, 2011). Conclusively, although the concept of public sphere has been successful in providing important insights into the way in which public sphere structurally transformed in the early modern era, it falls short of the ability to provide a sufficient theoretical framework to help understand how public spheres structurally transform in the contemporary societies. Given that there is an increase in differentiation of social life manifested in various public spheres, there is need for a critical theory related to public normativity to deal with the challenges presented by complexity of the current modernity in terms of material and ideology so as to accommodate the polycentric nature of modern world. References Grbeša, M. (2004). Why if at all is the Public Sphere a Useful Concept?. Politička misao, 40(5), 110-121. Habermas, J. (2006): The Public Sphere: an encyclopedia article in Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works. Durham, M. and Kellner, D. (Eds). Malden, Blackwell, p. 73-78. Clawson, R. A. & Oxley, Z. M. (2008): Public opinion in a democracy, in Public Opinion: democratic ideals, democratic practice. Washington: CQ Press, Ch 1, pp. 3-26. Maddox, G. (2005). Political pluralism in Australia: groups and politics. In Australian democracy in theory and practice (5th ed.) Pearson Education Australia. Ch 8, p. 366-376. Maddison, S (2007): Lobbying Government. In Government Communication in Australia. S. Young, Melbourne, Cambridge University Press. Ch 15, pp 255-269 McNair, B (2011): Politics, Democracy and the Media. In An Introduction to Political Communication, (5th Edn), Routledge. Ch 2, pp 15-26 Craig, G. (2004). The Public. In Media, Politics and Public Life. Allen & Unwin, Ch. 3, p. 47-65. Lunt, P., & Stenner, P. (2005). The Jerry Springer Show as an emotional public sphere. Media, Culture & Society, 27(1), 59-81. Moe, H. (2009). Online Media Participation and the Transformation of the Public Sphere: Moving beyond the Fragmentation Debate. Milwaukee, WI. http://www. hm. uib. no/files/Moe_AoIR. pdf. Susen, S. (2011). Critical Notes on Habermas's Theory of the Public Sphere. Sociological Analysis, 5(1), 37-62. Read More