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CHAPTER 2. THE PUBLIC SPHERE 15
2.1 Discourse and the Public Sphere
The notion of the public sphere is today most closely associated with the work of
Jurgen Habermas. Habermas defines and identifies the public sphere in a variety
of ways. A “portion of the public sphere comes into being in every conversation
in which private individuals assemble to form a public body” he suggests
(Habermas 1974, 49). Similarly, Keane (1984, 2) points out that “a public sphere
is brought into being whenever two or more individuals, who previously acted
singularly, assemble to interrogate both their own interactions and the wider relations
of social and political power within which they are always and already
embedded.” Habermas has variously described the public sphere as follows:
The public sphere is “a realm of our social life in which something approaching
public opinion can be formed” (Habermas 1974, 49).
The public sphere is populated by “private people gathered together as a
public and articulating the needs of society with the state” (Habermas 1989,
176).
The public sphere is “the sphere of private people come together as a public”
(Habermas 1989, 27).
The public sphere is “private persons making public use of their reason”
(Habermas 1989, 27).
Two more specific definitions of the public sphere have also been offered:
Kemp (1985, 182) has defined the public sphere as “that area of public life
in which intersubjective agreement on values and standards can be reached
in order to solve sociopolitical or practical questions.”
Keane (1984, 2) suggests that the public sphere includes those arenas in
which members “consider what they are doing, settle how they will live
together, and determine, within the estimated limits of the means available
to them, how they might collectively act within the foreseeable future.”
There are several common themes running through these definitions and explications.
First, the public sphere is a zone or domain, set off from other areas or