Public Sphere & Political Economy

• The Public Sphere & Political Economy, COMS 2003, 14 Feb 2025

Question Prompts

• What conditions are needed for meaningful public discourse and the shaping of public opinion?
• Are those conditions currently in place?
• What would Jurgen Habermas say about this?

The Enlightenment

• Occurred in 17th-18th Century Europe.
• Emphasized reason and rationality.
• Marked by the emergence of empiricism and the scientific method.

Critiques of the Enlightenment

• Addressed the concept of Capital "T" Truth.
• Questioned the idea that science can explain everything.
• Examined Instrumental Reason
• Considered who qualifies as a reasoning subject.

Habermas: Benefits of Enlightenment

• Average people participate in the political process.
• This participation equals democracy and the public sphere.
• There was more literacy and increasingly literate and educated classes.
• The Enlightenment resulted in Capitalism, Liberal Politics, Nation States, and the Class System.

The Public Sphere

• Emerged in the 17th century.
• A place where private individuals gather to discuss issues of public affairs.
• According to Jurgen Habermas (1964), the public sphere is a realm of social life where public opinion can be formed, with access guaranteed to all citizens

The Public Sphere (Habermas)

• Mediates between society and state.
• The public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion.
• Accords with the principle of the public sphere which exists between society and the state.

The Public Sphere: Specific Conditions

• Specific conditions need to be right for the public sphere to work.

The Public Sphere: The Right Conditions

• Must be free from state control or government bureaucracy.
• Guarantee freedom of assembly and association.
• Includes freedom to express and publish opinions on matters of general interest.

The Public Sphere as Distinct Sphere

• Requires the separation of private and public interests.
• Must be distinct from the state.
• Should be free of market and commercial interests.

Communicative Rationality

• Involves coming together to express oneself authentically.
• Includes hearing one another.
• Requires agreeing on some action as a collective.
• Oriented to achieving, sustaining, and reviewing consensus.
• Consensus rests on the intersubjective recognition of criticizable validity claims (Habermas, 1980).

Communicative Rationality: 4 Rules for Proper Communication

• Everyone understands each other using a common language
• Everyone agrees the conversation is worth having.
• Everyone is being genuine, authentic and not misleading
• Everyone must agree on a set of values and behaviours

in the Public Sphere

• Statements should be true, ethical, and sincere.

Communicative Rationality vs. Persuasive Rationality

• Persuasive/Strategic Rationality is not sincere and often misleading.

Coffee Houses (18th Century)

• Places where people could read political publications and literature.
• Also a place to discuss amongst themselves.

Reasons for Historical Contingency of the Public Sphere and Public Opinion

• Arose in the 18th century (1700s).
• The Bourgeois / Constitutional Society was free from some of the earlier struggles of feudal times.
• Communication systems included political publications and literature.
• Churches became a private matter with the Reformation.
• The reading public became more involved in political discussions and processes.

The Right Conditions for the Public Sphere (Review)

• Business/Private Interest must be absent.
• Must be free from government bureaucracy or state control.
• Requires a Reasoning Public with Communicative Rationality.
• All citizens should be able to participate democratically.
• Informed Public Opinion Requires an Informed Public: Access to information and proper Communication System and transparency of government.

Habermas Laments

• The commercialization of journalism.
• The rise of public relations (publicity) and propaganda.

Lamenting Public Relations

• Companies and governments often have an apparent display of openness.

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

• Transition to a more commercial model in the 19th century.
• Rise of advertising agencies.
• Strategic placement of ads in newspapers and publications.
• Shift from "journalism of conviction to one of commerce".
• Journalism is necessary for democracy to keep the public informed.
• Includes more bureaucracy in the welfare state.
• Capitalism and later Late Modern Capitalism were too successful.

Democracy Needs Proper Communication

• Newspapers and television are examples of communication tools
• Communication tools fall short of the criteria of the Public Sphere.

Difficulties in the Public Sphere

• It's difficult to agree on norms, values, and "truth."

Critiques of the Public Sphere

• There is disagreement upon what is rational.
• Some forms of communication (e.g., anger) may be legitimate.
• Achieving universality of norms and values is difficult due to language and culture.
• Achieving the public sphere is hard in practice.
• It can only happen under ideal conditions.
• There is unequal access due to inequality based on factors like gender, sex, citizenship/immigration status, race, ethnicity, language, ability, etc.

Nancy Fraser: Feminist Critiques

• The Public Sphere was supposed to be universal
• However, it excluded women and minoritized groups

Political Economy: Robert McChesney

• What is political economy?

Political Economy

• The branch of social science that studies the relationships between individuals and society.
• Also includes markets and the state.
• Uses tools and methods from economics, political science, and sociology.

Political Economy in COMS

• Focuses on issues of ownership, control, and regulation of communications and media systems.
• Concerned with how these factors impact the democratic process.

Robert McChesney

• The media system is not simply an economic category.
• Media are responsible for transmitting culture, journalism and politically relevant information.
• Fulfilling those needs is mandatory for self-governance.
• Media serve the public

Key Terms

• Media Concentration: Corporate mergers and acquisitions mean large corporations control more of the market and there is less competition
• Monopoly / Oligopoly: Just one or a few companies control most of the market, which prevents competition.
• Deregulation: Less regulations in place to curb the impact and power of large corporations.
• Capitalism: Most means of production are privately owned production is guided and income distributed largely through the operation of markets.
• Commodification: Turn something into a product to be bought or sold.

Media Regulation

• Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
• Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the U.S.
• Other regulators, like the Department of Justice (anti-trust laws) and FTC (tech cos).

Central Concerns (McCheshey)

• Commercial model of current media systems needs a media system that allows for public debate that is free from private interest in order to have an informed, democratic society
• More concern around profit and appealing to audiences with disposable income and appealing to advertisers than democratic participation.

Central Concerns

• Private corporations use power and influence to intervene in political and regulatory process.
• They can shape and control the market.
• Big media companies push for less strict regulations.
• Media Concentration and Capitalist Accumulation: large, national and multi-national corporations acquire smaller companies
• This merges with others, greatly reducing the number of companies competing.
• A media monopoly or oligopoly means one or a few corporations controls most of the market.

Regulation of Media Industries

• Regulation (rather than Deregulation) is in the public interest due to:
• It allows for a plurality of voices (not just big corporations)
• Helps curb some of the outsized impact of large media corporations and allows smaller companies to compete

Justification for Concentration

• The market is self-regulating and the marketplace will sort things out.
• It will mean better or more products and innovation and naturally sorts out what will succeed in the marketplace
• There is no alternative

The Fate of Journalism

• Journalism used to run on an advertising model and now advertisers no longer buy space in newspapers.
• Advertisers now buy into an ad pool run by internet technology companies (like Google) to reach audiences and usually operate in a black box.
• McChesney states we are in a "Journalism free zone“ because of the internet.

The Importance of Regulation

• McChesney states there is no reason a society cannot maintain a regulated commercial system
• There is no reason we can't have a democratically accountable public media system, and also have a large non-profit and non-commercial media sector.

Digital Monopolies

• On September 26, 2024, the top companies in the world by market cap are: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Saudi Aramco, Meta Platforms, Berkshire Hathaway, TSMC, and Eli Lilly.

Digital Monopolies and Democracy

• Commercial Model: Commodification of users and their data (commodification: turn something into a commodity to be bought or sold).
• Shoshana Zuboff (2018) calls this "surveillance capitalism."

Zuboff- Surveillance Capitalism

• States we enter the third decade marked by a stark new form of social inequality which Zuboff calls epistemic inequality.
• Zuboff recalls a pre-Gutenberg era of extreme asymmetries of knowledge and the power that accrues to such knowledge, as the tech giants seize control of information and learning itself