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CHAPTER 2. THE PUBLIC SPHERE 30
Rather, the publicist presentation of privileged private interests [public relations]
was fused from the very start with political interests.
“Opinion management” is distinguished from advertising by the fact that it expressly
lays claim to the public sphere as one that plays a role in the political
realm. Private advertisements are always directed to other private people insofar
as they are consumers; the addressee of public relations is “public opinion,” or
the private citizens as the public and not directly as consumers. The sender of
the message hides his business intentions in the role of someone interested in the
public welfare. The influencing of consumers borrows its connotations from the
classic idea of a public of private people putting their reason to use and exploits
its legitimations for its own ends. The accepted functions of the public sphere are
integrated into the competition of organized private interests (Habermas 1989).
As consequence of the dominance of the “sham” public sphere, it is difficult if not
impossible to formulate a general will. Private persons believe that their actions
in the degenerate public sphere, which resemble but do not represent deliberation,
discussion and choice, contribute to responsible public opinion formation, as
public relations “bestows on its object the authority of an object of public interest
about which – this is the illusion to be created – the public of critically reflecting
private people freely forms its opinion” (Habermas 1989, 194). However, with
the public aspects of the public sphere stripped away, citizens are transformed
into consumers, opinions into prejudices, and preferences into purchases; only the
former have public consequences for state authority. The ability to formulate a
general will has disappeared
precisely to the extent that the publicist self-presentations of privileged private
interests’ have adopted the consensus-formation behavior of creating a
(false) general interest through the techniques of public relations: because
publicity for specific products is generated indirectly via the detour of a
feigned general interest, [public relations] creates and not only solidifies the
profile of the brand and a clientele of consumers but mobilizes for the firm
or brand or for an entire system a quasi-political credit, a respect of the kind
one displays toward public authority (Habermas 1989, 194).
The difficulty in formulating a general will can be tied to the lack of criteria for
rationality in the reconstituted degenerate public sphere. Essentially, Habermas
argues that the public sphere has been “refeudalized,” featuring a return to the