Wait, What's A Public Sphere?

Image is 'Lloyd's Coffee House' by George Woodward. Sourced from Cafè Venezia.

This was written for the University subject, BCM110.

I'm going to start this post with a simple definition of 'public sphere' from Oxford Bibliographies.

'The “public sphere” is generally conceived as the social space in which different opinions are expressed, problems of general concern are discussed, and collective solutions are developed communicatively...' (Wessler & Freudenthaler, 2018).

I start with this, as the concept of the public sphere is one that has seen a great deal of controversy and a great deal of change.

Jurgen Habermas, German socialist and philosopher, is the creator of the theory of the public sphere. He likened the sphere to an 18th century coffeehouse but it has heavily criticised by many as it was seen to be ‘[promoting] a venue for male sociability that complemented, but was separated from, mixed-sex meetings with ladies’ (Cowan, 2001) and highlights, in this model in particular, how women and other minorities were excluded from conversation and discussion.

But regardless of any allegations of sexism or racism surrounding Habermas’ initial construction of  a public sphere, his model or representation is simply…outdated.

In truth, the public sphere today is the largest it’s ever been at any point in human history, far beyond the bounds of a small coffeehouse from a bygone century.

In fact, you could say that the Earth as a whole is a literal public sphere.

SIDENOTE: The Earth is not really a sphere, it’s a weird form of spheroid - yet, it’s still smoother than a billiard ball if you were to scale the Earth down to that size!

Fun science fact/anecdote aside, I say the Earth is a public sphere because of that word. You know that one word: 

TECHNOLOGY.

Technology has allowed the world to connect with everyone and everything else. This connectivity, largely, has paid enormous dividends - but also has come under extreme scrutiny for privacy issues. Just googling ‘technology privacy’ gives you a huge number of results, containing both pro and anti arguments and discussions.

But think about this: where are those voices and opinions coming from?

That’s right: everywhere.

Technology has eradicated the typical public sphere, largely due to social media and social media movements, but also because of message boards, forums, and all sorts of websites. After all, the internet ‘[has] become a fact of life for civil society worldwide, involving many actors -- regular citizens, activists, nongovernmental organizations, telecommunications firms, software providers [and] governments…’ (Shirky, 2011).

Smaller, niche communities are there, certainly, but they still always have a mainline to the bigger picture.

So in short, what’s my, or indeed, your public sphere? And who’s included or excluded? And what are the issues that are discussed?

I don’t think I can answer that without extremely broad answers, those being…

The public sphere is just…Earth.

No-one is excluded, some people are just louder than others or have a bigger following.

And any issue at all you can possibly think up.

Am I aware of all the issues? Of all the people within the sphere? No, I couldn’t possibly be, no-one is. And yes, we all have niches that we’re a part of, and not everyone is directly linked to everyone. But just like those smaller communities mentioned earlier, a connection is still there and a short Google away.

To fit a longer story into smaller words, the modern public sphere is everywhere…

…and nowhere.

REFERENCES:

Cowan, B 2001, ‘What Was Masculine About the Public Sphere? Gender and the Coffeehouse Milieu in post-Restoration England’, History Workshop Journal, vol. 51, p. 134

Shirky, C 2011, ‘The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 90, no. 1, p. 28

Wessler, H & Freudenthaler, R 2018, Public Sphere, Oxford Bibliographies, viewed 30 March 2018, <http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199756841/obo-9780199756841-0030.xml>