Page 7 - Democracy and the Public Sphere

2 Jürgen Habermas

critique’ of Habermasian thinking. But, of course, there is also plenty
of insight to be lost in such an approach. Moreover, though we
should be wary of artificial distinctions, this book engages Habermas

primarily as a social, political and communications theorist, more so
than as a formal philosopher.
Third, I aim to turn the Habermasian concept of the public sphere
outwards. As well as discussing what Habermas has said and what he
may have meant by it, I try to suggest ways in which we might take
the idea of the public sphere forward, intellectually and politically.
Although the book takes only a few very tentative steps in this
direction, it does make some suggestions on how the concept of the
public sphere might be put to work in the future.
The first chapter looks closely at Habermas’s classic work of
historical study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The
chapter is an excavation of an excavation. Chapter 2 considers some
of the critical responses that Structural Transformation has provoked
and asks what we can learn from them. Chapter 3 looks at some of
the subsequent theoretical manoeuvres undertaken by Habermas and
asks how they might recast our understanding of the public sphere.

The final two chapters focus on that task of turning the Habermasian
public sphere outwards. Chapter 4 looks at the role of the media (both
media institutions and media forms) in the discourse of the public
sphere. It argues that mediation, and not merely communication, must
be taken seriously when we are theorising the public sphere. In doing

so, it touches on the significance of new media and ‘digital culture’.

Finally, Chapter 5 explores the concept of ‘reflexivity’ and argues that
this must be at the core of a ‘politics of the public sphere’.

23/8/05 09:36:19
Goode 01 chaps 2
Goode 01 chaps 2 23/8/05 09:36:19