[Air-L] Public Sphere Article?

Tue Aug 14 10:04:13 PDT 2012

Hi,

Slavko Splichal recently published a new book which is entitled
"Transnationalization of the Public Sphere and the Fate of the Public" (see
here:
http://www.hamptonpress.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=978-1-61289-036-4).
But it is also quite dense. I have to agree with Christian on this, I don't
think choosing the easiest articles is the best way to go, one can
sometimes take much more out of one dense article than a 400-page book. If
you'll reconsider and take Habermas's work, his latter key writing on the
question of the public sphere is in his book "Europe: The Faltering
Project" (2009) (
http://www.amazon.com/Europe-Faltering-Project-Jurgen-Habermas/dp/0745646492/ref=sr_1_30?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344961583&sr=1-30&keywords=habermas).
Check the last chapter entitled "Political Communication in Media Society:
Does Democracy still have an Epistemic Dimension? The Impact of Normative
Theory on Empirical Research". Maybe taking taking it together with the
previous chapter "Media, Markets and Consumers" is not a bad idea, it's a
piece he wrote for a German weekly and covers the recent media crisis. The
last chapter is a more thorough reconsideration which of an article
Christian has mentioned (Political communication in media sociey).

So, besides Splichal's latest work (check also journal The Public, which
has freely available PDF's), I'd also recommend Peter Dahlgren's "Media and
Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication and Democracy", which was
published in 2009. It's a good book and Dahlgren is one of the key authors
in the field. Richard Gilman-Opalsky's "Unbounded Publics: Transgressive
Public Spheres, Zapatismo, and Political Theory" (2008) is a more radical
approach, but some chapters of the book could actually serve as a good
introduction to the questions concerning the public sphere. If I'm not
mistaken this was his PhD and is consequently a somewhat propaedeutic
introduction to the public sphere and Habermasian conceptualization (with a
critique in latter chapters).

There's some good pieces that were already mentioned, if we're looking at
older work one shouldn't forget Dewey's "Public and it's problems". I
wouldn't recommend Warner's book though, it's a post-modernist approach (to
a significantly modern question), which fails to see several significant
issues concerning the/a public. What/who constitutes a/the public has more
or less always been a normative question, which has significant influence
on whether the/a public sphere empirically in fact exists - and to what an
extent (because the/a public is a crucial element of the/a public sphere,
which several accounts often forget). Splichal's earlier work (Public
Opinion: Developments and Controversies:
http://www.amazon.com/Public-Opinion-Developments-Controversies-Institutions/dp/0847691632/ref=la_B001HPS7VG_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1344961385&sr=1-2)
offers a crucial distinction on what the word "public" means, because the
one connected to the public/private dichotomy is only one of the meanings.
It also offers a good insight into earlier work in this area, the
beforementioned Dewey (and the Dewey - Lippman debate for example) etc.

Best,

Jernej

2012/8/14 Tyler Bickford <tb2139 at columbia.edu>

> I've taught Michael Warner to good effect. While his essay "Publics and
> Counterpublics" is probably too difficult, I'd recommend the first chapter
> of that book, "Public and Private," which is really excellent and much more
> accessible. Conceptualizing "privacy" and adding the gender and sexuality
> lens as a hook really helps students grasp pretty abstract concepts.
>
> Or you might consider an "original" text -- say Kant's "What Is
> Enlightenment?", which is helpfully short and pretty specific about what
> counts as "public" and what "private" and the implications that follow.
> Something like that could create an opportunity for collaborative close
> reading early in the semester, and might also usefully set up a later
> reading of Habermas and others.
>
> Best,
> Tyler
>
>
>
> ________
> Tyler Bickford, PhD
> Core Lecturer
> Columbia University
> tb2139 at columbia.edu
> 845-418-4049
> http://www.tylerbickford.com
>
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 14, 2012, at 9:39 AM, Adam Fish wrote:
>
> Dear List,
>
> I am teaching an undergraduate course on media and the public sphere
> and looking for an article that introduces the public sphere. Habermas
> is too dense; Nancy Fraser probably too. The article could be an
> anthropological case study that frames the data in the theory of the
> public sphere or a more straight theoretical article. Any ideas?
>
> Thank you!
>
> Best,
>
> --
> Adam Fish, PhD
> Lecturer, Media Studies
> Sociology Department, Lancaster University
> mediacultures.org, @mediacultures
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