Models of Public Sphere in Political Philosophy

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Models of Public Sphere in Political

Philosophy
Gürcan Koçan
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Gürcan Koçan
Istanbul Technical University
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
[email protected]
ISSN 1890-5986 (online)

Models of Public Sphere in Political Philosophy
Gürcan Koçan
Public sphere is essentially a contested concept. It has always embodied and been
embedded in specific social, cultural and historical situations. On one hand, it refers to
a relationship that is socially and politically constituted or constructed within and
through time (history) in a particular space with the active involvement of people (i.e.
agents) sharing a set of traditions (laws, institutions, language and practices). On the
other hand, it refers to a general idea that evolved with a view to some good woven
into networks of political concepts, social practices and historical institutions. Different
interpretations of such practices, institutions, concepts express specific positions on and
about the notion of public sphere as a structure. Certain values and interests (norms)
are implicit in them; and these underlie the particular ways by which public sphere as a
distinct realm of political society can be characterized. For this reason, the concept of
public sphere is not separable from particular understandings and interpretations of it.
It is dependent upon a larger and more comprehensive network of political and social
concepts and meanings that signify this specific concept as part of the ongoing
practices and institutions of politics.
The idea of public sphere has had a long and distinguished conceptual history.
Since the time of Aristotle, political philosophers have contemplated the relationship
between citizens and between citizens and political society as a whole and between
citizens and state. Aristotle deserves to be known as the first thinker emphasizing the
separation of private from public. His ideas constituted a major breakthrough for a
conceptual innovation toward public sphere in contrast to the Platonic view of politics
conceiving the notion of "good" in a more unified manner without questioning the
implications of ontological differences between private and public. For Aristotle, the
picture was more complicated than Plato had seen it. For example, the good of the city
was not of the same kind as the good of the house or that of a single person. It was not
possible to conceive the good of the state without considering at the same time whether
each citizen or the majority or, at least, some people individually were pursuing their
own personal good (Aristotle; 1992: 117-121 or 1264ab). Whereas Plato saw the city as
a homogeneous entity constituting unity in which everything was common to
everybody, Aristotle distinguished the private as spheres of particular beings such as
individual, slave, woman and family and the public as a sphere of citizens and polis
without separating these completely. The medium that allowed the means of access
between the spheres was the public forum. The Polis required the "public forum" that
should be accessible to every citizen and where a large variety of social experiences
could be rationally expressed and exchanged in rational discussions towards
systematically and critically examining policies of state.
EUROSPHERE WORKING PAPER No.02 KOÇAN
The formation of public forums for the scrutiny of policies of government is an

important step toward democratic governance, for it is the means by which the
condition of the ruling of people by the people for the people can be rendered a lived
experience. Today, public sphere stands for an ideal for the construction of a
democratic society in which public scrutiny of governmental policies moves beyond
the boundaries of formal politics and acts as a critical resource for the legitimization of
these policies, integrating citizens into political community as whole, and protecting
individual's freedom and equality. The rise of a transnational politics, culture and
economic reality is a decisive transformation of politics, culture and economic
activities. The process of political and social mobilization beyond and across national
boundaries has been accelerated. Political power is no longer concentrated and
arranged hierarchically but dispersed across different levels of governance and
dissolved into networks. Not only does this deeply affect the policy-making process
and raise new political issues in relation to democracy. This also calls for theoretical
innovation. In this context, this paper is meant to clarify the normative, descriptive and
analytical dimensions of the concept of public sphere and to place it on solid historical
groundwork. The aim of this paper is to outline the present state of art in the theory of
public sphere. It attempts to contribute to a common understanding of public sphere as
a communicative social and political realm and reflect its defensive, legitimizing,
participative and integrative functions. It is one of the particular objectives of this paper
to integrate conceptual and historical approaches.
Suffice to say at the outset that there is no fixed and hence absolute definition of
public sphere. What we have is rather broad and vague definitions of it that theorists
use in order to reflect upon different values and reveal basic elements of democratic
societal association. For convenience, the present review will limit the examination to
the comparison of different understandings of public sphere among exemplary
theorists, focusing primarily on its meanings and basic elements.
Theorizing Public Sphere: Descriptive or Normative?

Looking back over theoretical history of public sphere from the time of Aristotle to the
present day, public sphere still remains one of those ambiguous and elusive concepts
that is drifting in murky and volatile waters of abstraction. It is not anchored yet in a
clear, consistent, and bounded field of theory. Public sphere theory has been ambiguous
for several reasons. First, a very large number of factors and conditions influence the
realm of the public sphere. In addition to all the variables that influence the social and
political processes of public sphere, economic processes involve the interaction of
environmental factors as well. Theorists have not only to cope with principles of
communication, laws and political institutions. They must also cope with nearly infinite
varieties and complexity of human interactions, understandings, interpretations
opinions, attitudes, values, behaviors, customs, prejudices, etc. Second, because of the
very practical importance of the issue of public sphere, the theory of public sphere has
very largely focused on the function of it and on those strategies that have proven most
effective for achieving that function, rather than on nuts and bolts that are necessary for
the very existence of public sphere.
Clearly, the concept of public sphere has many meanings. Amongst the growing
multiple meanings, all with different political, social and philosophical connotations on
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public sphere there are two emerging streams of thought and both have something
different to say on the concept public sphere. One major dividing line goes between
those who have micro meanings, i.e. those who analyze public sphere as micro
practices of interaction that occurs between individuals, between individuals and their
social, political and economic environment in the context of shaping, criticizing and
reproducing norms, meanings, values and identities and those who have a macro
meanings, i.e. those who focus on public sphere as a whole with interconnections of
actors, institutions and structures. Interconnections exist within and among these
structures, and individuals and groups are constrained by these structures.
What is macro and micro, therefore, would depend on the explanatory purposes of
theories; it is possible to analyze the public sphere using micro- or macro meanings.
Another possible way of making this distinction has to do with relative size; for
example, the citizens are micro in relation to the politics and macro in relation to the
individuals that interact within its structure. But the central problem that stimulates
current theoretical development about the macro-micro connection is that of the
relationship between individuals and public sphere or, to put it differently, the issue of
the function of people in public sphere or relationship between structure and agency in
the realm of public sphere.
There are two different major theoretical stances about the macro-micro
relationship: descriptive and normative. Descriptive conceptualization of public sphere
aims at reaching an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances
that are products of historical development process of political society. This way of
conceiving public sphere seeks to explain what the public sphere is and why it is that
way, and how the public affects the political and social life. Normative
conceptualization of public sphere is an act of creating a concept by thinking and
reasoning. It attempts to describe what the public sphere ought to be. Thus, a
descriptive theory of public sphere might seek to explain what causal forces have
produced the structures of the public sphere, whereas a normative theory of public
sphere would tell us what structures of political and social life in connection to would
be best, right, or justifiable. Or more simply: descriptive theories of public sphere are
about facts and normative theories of public sphere are about principles and values.
Descriptive Theorization of Public Sphere

Sometimes, a descriptive theory of public sphere is presented in an oversimplified
way—as if there were a single, well-defined type of public spheres that can be counted
as a fact. In fact, the phrase "public sphere" is used in a variety of ways. The one thing
that descriptive analyses of public sphere have in common is that they are intended to
explain what the public sphere is and how public spheres have an effect on the social
and political way of life of a people. Nonetheless, there are three characteristic forms of
descriptive theorization of public sphere that can be identified:
The first kind of descriptive theory of public sphere, which can be called "fact
based", is quite simply a theory of what the content is of a particular ground of truth
that either confirmable by experience or true by definition. Here public sphere might be
understood as circumstances or states of affairs—that is, things that obtain. Thus, a
theory of the democracy might simply seek to explore the main character of existing
public sphere as a principle that can contribute development of democracies. Reality
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based theories are responsive to questions like, "What are the principles that form this
area of the public sphere?" or "Can these cases be explained by some underlying series
of principles?"
The second kind of descriptive public sphere theory refers to "explanatory"
approaches that attempts to explain the why the public is the way it is. For example, a
very simple deliberative democratic theory might state that the content of the public
sphere can best be explained by the structures of communicative action.
The third kind of public sphere theories that are referred to as "descriptive" are theories
about the consequences that will be produced by a given structure of public sphere.
This is the sense of "descriptive theory" that is most frequently invoked by democratic
theories. The question —"What effects will a dialogical structure of communication (as
opposed to a monologic) regime have on the democratic outcomes?"—can be answered
by a public sphere theory that is descriptive in the sense that it calculates
communicative actions but does not explicitly evaluate the desirability of the
regulation.
Normative Theory of Public Sphere

Normative theories of public sphere are by their character evaluative. In this sense, a
normative theory of public sphere would take a stand on the question whether active
participation in public sphere is better than regulation. These theories tend to be
entwined with more general normative theories, e.g. moral or political theories,
although this is not necessarily the case. Utilitarianism, deontology and teleology are
three of the most important general normative theories that have had an influence on
theories of public sphere. There are two other distinctions that are important to
understanding the general idea of a normative theory of public sphere.
Ideal versus Non-ideal Theory

Some normative public sphere theories are "ideal"—that is, they are theories about
what the best public sphere would be in the world in which everything was politically
possible, the public sphere could be adequately enforced, and other structures that
interact with the subject of the theory could be adjusted to produce the best overall
political and social system. Other normative public sphere theories are "nonideal"—
that is, they are theories that assume a variety of constraints on the option of public
sphere. For example, a nonideal theory might take into account political feasibility or it
might take into account the possibility that the system would not provide an optimal
level of enforcement for the public sphere that would otherwise be best.
Justificatory Theories and Critical Theories

Normative public sphere theories also vary in their "attitude" towards the political and
social system. One is likely to encounter normative public sphere theories that start
with the question, "What is the justification that be given actions for such and such a
public sphere?" These justificatory theories have a limited purpose. They do not
address the ultimate question, "What is the best political and social system?" On the
other hand, many public sphere theories have the opposite purpose—the critique of
existing notions of public sphere. Thus, a critical theory might enumerate all of the
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criticisms that could be made of an existing public sphere—even though some of the
criticisms may rest on inconsistent premises.
The Intersection of Positive and Normative Theory

So far, we have been assuming a fairly sharp distinction between descriptive and
normative public sphere theories. And for many purposes, assuming that there is a
sharp line that separates normative and descriptive public sphere theories is a good
working hypothesis. Even assuming there is such a sharp line, however, there are
relationships between descriptive and normative theories.
Descriptive Theory in the Service of Normative Theory

One relationship is clear and straightforward. Many normative theories underdetermine
what the public sphere should be in the absence of substantial information about the
effects of the social and political life. This is most obvious in the case of utilitarian
theories, where information about consequences does all the real work of determining
which public sphere is best. For normative theories like utilitarianism, descriptive
theory performs an essential service. Without a descriptive account of the effects of a
given public sphere choice, utilitarianism has nothing to say about what public sphere
is best.
Descriptive Theory as a Constraint on Normative Theory

Another relatively non-controversial relationship between descriptive and normative
public sphere theories arises when a descriptive theory that explains why the public
sphere has the structure that it does, is taken as imposing a constraint on normative
theory. Some structures of public sphere that might be justified by ideal normative
public sphere theory may be considered "unrealistic" in light of descriptive theory. In
cases like this, descriptive theory provides constraints that limit the options available to
normative theory.
Concepts of Public sphere

The public sphere is both a historical and a critical idea. As a historical idea, it refers to
historical processes of emergence and development of publics in Western democratic
politics. In his book of the "Politics", Aristotle situated public sphere within city-state
polis as related to the public life of the political community as opposing it to the private
realm of the household (oikos). Aristotle described public sphere as public life
constituted in spatial-temporal setting of market place (agora) where citizens as equals
gather to discuss (lexis) matters of common concern in polis.
The idea of public sphere from writings of Aristotle is transferred into publicus in
the Roman ruling system. Romans referred to publicus as a signifying realm of a
collective body of citizens or subjects in contrast to privatus as denoting to the domain
of the private household. Then, this distinction between publicus and privatus in
Roman ruling carried to through Middle Ages for separating the King or Feudal Lord's
representations from oikodespotes/paterfamilias. In the Middle Ages, the king or feudal
lord represents himself before another people; the King or Feudal lord was the only
public representation, and all others were viewers. This means there is no sharp
separation of the public from private realms. Public sphere is represented by only
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King's public representations. With capitalist economic developments and the rise of
the bourgeoisie the meaning and context of public sphere is changed once more in the
17th and 18th centuries. The public sphere became representative publicity as
independent domain in relation to the state and private life. In the] 18th century, the
most important characteristics of the public sphere was the communicative use of
public reason. It is argued that the communicative use of public reason occurred within
the bourgeois reading public, in response to literature, and in institutions such as salons
and coffee-houses became the centre of debate. Then the public sphere become to
emerge out of the private institution of the family to "literary sphere", where discussion
of art and literature play the most important role (Habermas, 1989: 60). The importance
of this lies in the process of discussion, which take the form of public communication.
This public communication has a set of rules for exchange of points of view
around issues of political concern. One main characteristics of this communication is
that participants have a common interest in truth, which meant that they bracketed
status differentials.
The public sphere as it was by description requires active participation, but access
depended on one's communicative skills and knowledge. In this period, public spheres
had become a means for civil society to articulate interests. The growths of the political
public sphere took place first in the political and social life of Britain. Later, the public
sphere became instituted within the European bourgeois constitutional states as a way
of monitoring state authority via informed and critical discourse of the people.
Although with differences, the theoretical frameworks of Aristotle, Hanna Arendt,
Jurgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, Charles Taylor, John Keane, Robert D. Putnam locate
the public sphere in civil society stirred by exchange of meanings and points of views
towards deliberative and associative democratic process of decision making. In viewing
the public sphere as the first intermediary between citizens and state, they emphasize
the importance of public sphere to rules and functions of modern democratic political
systems.
The roots of the idea of public sphere goes back to Aristotle whose model of the
politics tends to see public sphere as a legal and political realm of the polis, state, and
city in contrast to the private realm defined by the loci of family, home, and individual
identity. From Aristotelian point of view, people need to think of political society as
consisting of two spheres: the public sphere in which the rule of the citizens is
unconditional (people obey the political ruling as established by the themselves here
because they have agreed to and because the citizens have status of being sovereign)
and the private world as outside of the political ruling through which each citizen
becomes a person to freely pursue their own best interests.
For Aristotle "man is by nature a political animal" and can only achieve the good
life by living as a citizen in a polis. The polis provides the best ground for citizens to
actualize his or her potential to have a good life. Taking into account having the good
life as the highest end, both for the political community as a whole and for each of us
individually (Aristotle, 1992: 186-189, 1278b), people make every effort from private
life which is the primary and immediate unit of society, persistent through labor acting
upon nature and producing basic goods and services towards the establishment of the
public life because public life is a necessary condition for the final and perfect
association and realization of the highest good (Eudemoniâ) (Aristotle 1958, 1280a).
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Public life is a defining feature of polis. It is the domain of active citizenship and
political action as aiming to establish a good life. In this context, public sphere refers
more to a political state in which citizens rationally deliberate on matters of what
makes their political societies "good."
In the Politics, Aristotle particularly distinguished between two realms of
existence what is private ipikos) and what communal (koinon). The private realm is
associated with the family and household. Aristotle associated koinon with the concepts
of common life, community, association, relationship and city state. In this context,
Aristotle does not puts oikos as a innate independence from the polis. It is part of it. It
enables individuals to become not only members of a family or household but also
members of common life and city-state as well (Aristotle, 1992: 53-62 or 1252a-
1253a29). It is from this standpoint that Aristotle regards the oikos primarily as an
political and social institution that not only empower natural ties of association and
love with meaning and value, but also adjust the connection between private individual
and public citizen, family and society and society and state in order to impel to protect
and guarantee common good of the whole society.
Thus, in Aristotelian account of politics oikos is realm of common life. It is
necessary for constitution of common good and polis. Aristotle states that unity is
necessary to the polity but argues that polis requires diversity. Aristotle states:
[A] household is a more self-sufficient thing than the individual, the state than the
household; and the moment the association comes to comprise enough people to be self
sufficient, effectively we have a state. Since, then, a greater degree of self-sufficiency is
to be preferred to a lesser, the lesser degree unity is to be preferred to the greater
(Aristotle, 1992: 107-108 or 1261b6).
Yet oikos is separated from common life; yet, not wholly separated. This means private
individuals are autonomous from the state to a certain extent. It is only in such a
separated domain of oikos that the "private individual" could become independent from
public authority and then establishes a "private citizen" within common life (koinon),
which is connected each as other as public with common good rising above purely
personal interests.
In her book, the Human Condition, Hanna Arendt modeled the idea of public
sphere upon an Athenian city, where in principle public space was characterized, by the
'arena' accessible to all citizens. The majority of participators of this arena formed the
"public body" comprising of private citizens. The main function of public sphere is not
to form rational-critical consensus and public opinion through discussion, but rather an
autonomous space composed of private citizens who have a competitive, resistant and
critical stance not only to each other but also public policies. In other words, the notion
of public sphere as being grounded in the realization of "the common good" through
"rational" debate has been replaced by a notion of arena as consisting of numerous and
heterogeneous conversations and arguments, never finally resolved, between competing
interests and competing notions of the good. This means that the public sphere is
agonism (Arendt, 1998: 34-41). Agonism refers to discursive contestation. It underlies
the importance of a dynamic social and political space in which individuals
representing various traditions and worldviews meet to engage and contest one another
in argument with agonal spirit. In this context, Arendt perspective public sphere
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appraises the notions of indeterminacy, contingency, diversity and difference between

people, between associations and between publics.
The concept of public sphere made well known mainly by Habermas in his book,
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere — An Inquiry into a Category of
bourgeois Society, has been much debated. In his study, Habermas provides an
extensive historical and sociological sketch to show how the bourgeoisie public sphere
emerged. Initially, he identifies it with the term public which has changed from being a
connectedness with the court (public vs. private authority) to being linked to a kind of
open debate of equal people and free expression of viewpoints developed in clubs,
coffee/tea houses and newspapers that emerged in the eighteenth century. It represents
autonomous space (free from state/government intervention) and confronts ruling elites
with a state of public opinion. It is comprised primarily of those 'economically rising'
but politically 'marginalized' bourgeoisie. It is disseminated through (and takes place
in) the mass media such as large newspapers or broadcasters. Later, it is transformed
and conquered by centralizations and commercial interests. The transformation of
public sphere by commercialization took citizens from the position of participants and
degraded them to that of audience, creating an apathetic and atomized mass of
individuals fed information that reduced public opinion from a common view
formation process into mere aggregation of uninformed, unchallenged, underdeveloped
and prejudicial views.
Habermas's explanation of the public sphere has a variety of meanings and
connotations. Firstly, he described it as autonomous, arising from a civil society, at
least conceptually, distinct from the state. This definition assumes a clear distinction
between "private" and "public." Secondly, it is a kind of public communicative
interaction, which is considered both decision-oriented and opinion-oriented. Thirdly, it
is seen as a function of structures, institutions and agents. In other words, the social and
economic structures themselves are prime reason for the construction and enactment of
the public sphere.
This means the public sphere is accessible and open to all in principle, which
ensures that every citizen has equal ability to participate in public debate and express
their opinions. In this context it portrayed as an autonomous social sphere of
communicative occurrence in which the realm of private individuals as equals comes
together as 'public', in a spatial place (in the agora of the polis - the marketplace of the
city). Understood in this sense, public sphere can be viewed more as a deliberative
forum wherein meanings are expressed, exchanged, disseminated, discussed and
integrated, as well as the collective body constituted as public by, and in this
communicative process. In this context, Habermas offers a clearer definition by stating
that the public sphere is:
A realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed.
Access is guaranteed to all citizens. A portion of the public sphere comes into being in
every conversation in which private individuals assemble to form a public body. […]
Citizens behave as a public body when they confer in an unrestricted fashion—that is,
with the guarantee of freedom of assembly and association and the freedom to express
and publish their opinions—about matters of general interest. In a large public body, this
kind of communication requires specific technological means for transmitting information
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and influencing those who receive it. Today, newspapers and magazines, radio and
television are the media of the public sphere. (Habermas, 1989a:136)
Habermas conceives the public sphere as both an institution and a form of

communication by which people can deliberate about their common affairs, an arena or
space, in which this can happen socially and politically. Habermas's theory of public
sphere attempts to combine the aims of descriptive realistic theory and normative
theory. His idea is that a public sphere theory should both fit and justify the
deliberative democracy model. Thus, Habermas's theory of the communicative action
and ideal speech model would need to both fit the contours of public sphere decisions
and justify those decisions. Habermas's view of public sphere theory blurs the line
between descriptive and normative legal theory—essentially combining the enterprises
that we have called descriptive, fact based theory and justificatory normative theory.
To some extent Charles Taylor describes the public sphere differently:
The public sphere is a common space in which the members of society are deemed
to meet through a variety of media: print, electronic, and also face-to-face encounters;
to discuss matters of common interest; thus to be able to form a common mind about
these. (Taylor, 2004: 83).
In Taylor's discussion of public sphere, he describes it as an essential part of the
modern 'social imaginary' where all members of political society come together as a
unified group to discuss ideas about the common good in a rational manner. Drawing
on his Rousseauan model of politics, he portrays public sphere not as an aggregation of
views held by citizens but as a kind of consensus/General Will, emerging from critical
debate, (Taylor 1995: 268-269) that when accomplished, becomes a place of popular
sovereignty.
Taylor offers a unique perspective on public sphere when he describes three
statuses of public sphere: extrapolitical, secular and metatopical space (Taylor 2004,
83-99). Extrapolitical status of public sphere implies lack of traditional authority,
partisanship or any exercise of political power in the process of exchange of views and
thoughts. The power of discussion for producing public opinion must be derived only
from reason and not from political authority. Secular status refers to an absence of a
transcendental idea on which public sphere is based. The public sphere is free, in that it
was not shaped or legitimized by any reference to divine order other than the will of
free agents that formed it. Metatopical space in turn, refers to shared, nonlocal social
imaginaries or common space of understanding. The fact that the public sphere is
metatopical implies that it not only knits "together a plurality of spaces into one larger
space of non-assembly" but it is also extended over time.
In contrast to Habermas and Taylor and their conceptual definition of public
sphere, John Keane offers a descriptive understanding of public sphere based on
concrete and actual situations. In this context he defines public sphere as,
A particular type of spatial relationship between two or more people, usually
connected by a certain means communication [...], in which non-violent controversies
erupt, for a brief or more extended period of time, concerning the power relations
operating within their milieu of interaction and/or within the wider milieux of social
and political structures within which the disputants are situated (Keane, 2000:77).
Keane argues that the public sphere consists of a number of different spaces of
information flows, each working according to its own structure rule. He described three
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spatially differentiated and multilayered notions of public spheres: micro (sub-cultural),

meso (national) and macro (global). Micro (sub-cultural) public spheres comprise a
wide variety of the local interactions between dozens, hundreds or even thousands of
people at sub-national levels. Micro public spheres consist of contestable relationships
between 'imperializing power' and locales. They engage micro level challenges with
broader macro effects. Meso (national) sphere comprises the interaction of millions of
people at the level of the nation state structure or regions of state. Keane's concept of
public sphere represents power as a highly complex spaces of communication that
branches out into a multitude of overlapping international, national, regional, local, and
subcultural arenas that encompass millions of people who are watching, listening, or
reading across distant spaces. Macro (global) public sphere involves communication
that takes place between hundreds of millions even billions of people at the supra-
national or global level. This is a result of the international concentration of mass
media previously owned and operated at the nation state level. Today, development in
internet technologies stimulates the growth of macro-public spheres.
Nancy Fraser has conceptualized the public sphere not as a single, comprehensive
unitary order but as several "competing publics" constituted by competing arenas of
discourse, conflicting modes of participation, and differing strategies for social action.
Fraser’s understanding of the public sphere is contestational, layered and plural, even
though its participants are very unequally endowed with various power discourses. Her
approach to the public sphere emphasizes specific concepts of power and different
types of injustice, those of misrecognition and maldistribution, rooted respectively in
the cultural domination that is carried on through the status order and the economic
system. Fraser states that the public sphere did not and does not operate in a neutral
field of equality because actors cannot set aside their status and other markers of
difference to meet as equals in the communicative area of the public sphere. She points
out there is no single public sphere, though there is a dominant public sphere where
most cultural and political power resides. From here Fraser endorses what she labels
multiple "counterpublics" (Fraser, 1992: 123). She states that "arrangements that
accommodate contestation among a plurality of competing publics better promote the
ideal of participatory parity than does a single, comprehensive, overarching public"
(Fraser, 1992: 122).
Rather than conceiving of the public sphere as a single united sphere, Nancy
Fraser shifts the point of view of the public sphere from a more static institutional
perspective to complex and fragmented multiplicities which work as communicative
arenas for hermeneutical self-understanding, for recognition of new complex of issues
and for competitive discussions which are directed towards shaping public opinions
and criticizing the state policies. In this context, Nancy Fraser’s approach emphasizes
autonomous ‘public spheres’ where relations between publics are always constituted by
power relations and conflict. This model of the public sphere stands in contrast to the
functional and structural process of public opinion formation typified by
communicative action. Nancy Fraser locates the bases of the public sphere on
uncoordinated negotiation with competing arenas of discourse and conflict. Therefore,
this approach sees the public sphere not as a mean that provides a legitimization for
government/political decision making but as ideal type that represents the typical
features of a multicultural democratic society in the theoretical framework. From this
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point of view, Nancy Fraser describes public sphere is as parallel discursive arenas. She
says:
Parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and
circulate counter discourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities,
interests and needs (Fraser 1992:123)
Fraser’s theory of the public sphere draws more attention to the risk of insisting on one
public sphere as it could potentially be an “instrument of domination” rather than an
ideal of democracy. With particular reference to women’s marginalization in modern
democratic societies, she argues that we need to recognize the existence of multiple
spheres, or “competing counterpublics” or “subaltern counterpublics”, as more
egalitarian conditions of modern societies. She argues:
In stratified societies, subaltern counterpublics have a dual character. On the one
hand, they function as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment; on the other hand, they
also function as bases and training groups for agitational activities directed toward
wider publics (Fraser 1992: 124)
Fraser writes of the presence of weak publics and strong publics, highlighting the
challenges and the stakes. A strong public is completely separate from the state and
only engages in critical deliberation and discussion-orientated institutionalised
deliberation and decision-making (will formation) in the political social system. A
weak public refers to engaging in deliberation and opinion formation without decision-
making power (Fraser 1992: 125).
Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital
describes the public sphere as having to do with social capital. The social capital is a
process between people, whether it be through bowling clubs or the elks based on
voluntary association participation of individuals who are civically engaged with each
other on some impartial public ground of “associativeness” whereby everyone is equal.
And it is precisely within the domain of what it is described as social capital (the social
space which includes intimate relationships, friendship, associations and social
movements) that the public sphere is produced and worn-out. Social capital is like that:
it develops with the civic engagement of citizens spending time together, working co-
operatively and enjoying. As a basis for public sphere, it establishes networks, norms
and social trust in society and facilitates co-ordination and cooperation for mutual
benefit among individual citizens. In the case of contemporary societies, Putnam
however, has put forth one of the more persuasive explanations for the decline in public
sphere. After carefully considering numerous characteristics of modern society, Putnam
has argued that television and internet with their emphasis on consumption is one of the
main factors responsible for the decline of public sphere.
These theoretical frameworks of public sphere sees public sphere both actual and
ideal. There are differences in regards to the depiction of what is actual. Aristotle,
Hannah Arendt and Habermas have emphasized public sphere as a single shared
discursive sphere; Charles Taylor and Nancy Fraser described public sphere as a
multiple segmented sphere; John Keane portrayed multiple and multilevel overlapping
public spheres; Robert Putnam has revealed bases of multilayered and complex public
spheres. Establishing normative framework, all of the theories saw public as a
necessary condition for democracy. Due to their understanding of democracy (i.e.,
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liberal, deliberative, agonistic or republican model of democracy) and paradigms of

individualism, communalism, multiculturalism, and pluralism, their theories on public
sphere are differentiated. They are also differentiated in how each theory associates
public sphere with certain functions. Each theory emphasized in a different way,
critical, protective, regulative, legitimizing, participative and integrative functions of
public sphere. In this context, some of the theories consider individuals as rational and
purposeful in which, rational actions create public sphere through contingent acts of
freedom. This approach emphasizes public sphere in the context of the aggregate effect
of the behavior of utility maximizing individuals, acting rationally in pursuit of self-
interest is the creation of public sphere. In the end, it gives paramount importance to
consensus. Other approaches consider public sphere in conflict. In these theories the
amount of power individual or collective actors have is crucial in shaping public
sphere.
Act and End Oriented Public Sphere Theories

The concept of public sphere persists in the body of much perplexity concerning its
complexity, variety or multitude of objects, as well as the way in which it has been
conceptualized. This is somehow explicable as the concept specifies a state of relations
existing in extremely different forms and complexity in contents, meanings and
significance. The existence of complexity and different forms around the concept of
public sphere represent a series of distinct models, which on the one hand, refers to the
direct representation of some social and political relations and communicative activities
having their own ends in the political social field; on other hand, correspond to
different political values, priorities and private/public demarcation. That is why when
one analyzes public sphere, one has to take into account only not only its forms or
component fields but also contrive conceptual typologies of different models of public
sphere. This means that there is no single ‘model’ of public sphere, nor any single
‘ideal normative’ model of public sphere. Public sphere is historically, conceptually
and geographically situated. Therefore, it is not culturally neutral universal phenomena,
but it represents multiple and distinct type of social and political relationships
expressed in particular modes of economic and social way of life. The heterogeneity of
public spheres underlines that the expression of the public sphere is one of
convenience, rather than of rigid analysis. In terms of comparative analysis, one the
one hand, it denotes a domain that intermediates society and state, on other hand, it
signifies a transitional structure between the political system and the private zone of the
social life. However, what public sphere ‘is’ now, and how public sphere is changing
and where it will end up is an ongoing subject of research.
The various philosophical and political analyses have showed that the concept of
public sphere can be differently interpreted as far as the involved actors that are shaped
by political and economic conditions of society are dissimilar. Such a difference is one
of the important factors that not only determine the empirical facts of public sphere as
well as of its actual outcomes but also theoretical constructions of the public sphere.
Theoretical constructions of public sphere should be seen as a Weberian ideal
type. An ideal type of public sphere based on some concrete instances should consist
of a measurement instrument allowing for an understanding to occur, to unite views of
public sphere from various countries and to produce comparative analyses between
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different cases. At this level, the public sphere develops in various historical domains
as well as in the concrete instances, with different ideas and realities stemming from
other ideas.
It appears to be common to most ideal types of public sphere to accept a
dichotomy between ends and means, a distinction that is deeply embedded in their
ethical and political conceptualization, rooted in presumption regarding not only the
basic characteristics of human action but the very nature of public sphere. In these ideal
types of the public sphere, differentiations have been consistently generated between
immediate and essential, diverse and common, individual and common, necessary and
desirable ends of the public sphere, as also between achievable and ideal goals of the
public sphere. Distinctions about means have been also made about their moral
implications and respectability or their theoretical and conditional suitability with
shared values of political society. In this context, it is possible to divide ideal types of
public sphere between two main strands in regard to means and ends: the end-oriented
and the act-agent-oriented.
The end-oriented public sphere theories have generally understood to be
teleological and consequentialist models of public sphere. End-oriented public sphere
theories seek to show how the public sphere can play a decisive role for determining
policies that may contribute to certain ends of political society. They have argued that
public sphere is a goal-directed process while they have tried to explain the idea of
public sphere by reference to political objectives. In this context, the end-oriented
public sphere theories have attempted to identify common ends that the public sphere
should appeal before its communicative process is initiated. These ends are considered
vital not only for the public sphere, but also for all social and cultural activities of the
democratic society. After defining ends, they pragmatically try to define means and
ways of achieving such ends and objectives in the context of public sphere. End-
oriented ideal types see public as simply instrumental. The central task of public
sphere is the instrumental one. It deploys means to guide public action toward public
opinion and will-formation. Will formation occurs not by each individual pursuing
diverse ends in accordance with their individual interest conception but by conscious
cooperation or deliberately pursuing a common end. End-oriented theories of the public
sphere are concerned not only with defining with discursive conditions for building
cooperation for will formation, but with identifying ethically important norms or
principles for processes of the public sphere.
In end-oriented public sphere theories, the discursive condition of the public
sphere (autonomy and mutual respect) is given a twofold function. On the one hand,
they are regarded as the basic preconditions for reaching a valid consensus within the
public sphere. As such, they work as the basic validity condition of public sphere. On
the other hand, they are also agents of a normative idea that alter the conditions of
public sphere into bases of understanding and consensus oriented interaction. By
defining the conditions of reaching a valid understanding and consensus, end-oriented
public sphere, theories are explicating the provisional conditions that must be justified
within the realm of public sphere, if a valid consensus is to prevail. At the ideal level,
these conditions can be put together in a harmonious way. In this context, Habermas,
whose account of public sphere is one of the representatives of an end-oriented ideal
public sphere, maintains that validity-claims of the discourse refer to the persuasive
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traits of communicative action in the realm of public sphere (Habermas 1991).

Habermas suggests that any understanding oriented interaction in the realm of public
sphere, i.e.; communicative action oriented towards mutual understanding, implies
recognition of the corresponding validity claims of consent, truth, truthfulness, and
rightness. From here, end-oriented models of public sphere set procedural terms for
public sphere to function toward desired ends such maximization of the value of
democracy.
Procedural terms of en-oriented models of public sphere are five-fold,
encompassing components of symmetry and participation, mutual respect, truthfulness,
rational justification, common interests, at level of public sphere. Symmetry and
Participation is conceived as the equal opportunity to take part in a communicative
process of public sphere.
Mutual respect refers to a reciprocal situation in which everyone would have not
only an equal chance to argue and question but also empathy for considering a situation
from different perspectives in process. The mutual respect situation is one in which the
participants are oriented toward developing a mutual understanding, and not just to
achieving some specific purposive result through the interaction. Truthfulness refers to
truth value of intentions and viewpoints expressed by participants. When opinions,
attitudes, views, and interpretations are being provided in the realm of public sphere,
the participants have generally to be sincere. Justification refers to viewpoints that have
to be expressed in a rationally coherent way so that the participants understand what
the points of view are. Rational coherence of viewpoints is the basis for the ideal public
sphere. Participants are not only expected to express their point of views but also
engage in rational critical debate in a persuasive way about matters of public concern.
Common interest requires an effort to present viewpoints in rational way that exhibit
that one’s self-interest is not only harmonious with the common interest, but also helps
to realization of the common good.
For interaction through the public sphere to occur, each of these validity claims or
conditions must be met. If one of them breaks down or is violated, then that distorts
necessary agents of communicative process or encumbers the public sphere, and
prevents mutual understanding from emerging. This could be at the agent level, where
participants in a communicative interaction are not obliged by these, or where there is
an undemocratic authority or uneven distribution power situation. Today, in many
societies, the public sphere is distorted because at the level of institutions and
structures, many of these conditions are not likely to be associated with a number of
features – openness, fairness, asymmetry, mutual respect, and consensus.
Other ideal types of public sphere theories are act-oriented public sphere theories.
Act oriented theories sees the public sphere is an end in itself. They envision the public
sphere as the communicative and disclosive quality of action that corresponds with the
human condition of plurality and freedom. It is through action that the public sphere
can be established. The public sphere is a context in which citizens come together to
disclose their distinctive identity, to exercise their capacities for social and political
community and to realize their existence by means of communication. The public
sphere is the disclosure of the unique identities of citizens in the communicative
activity. This communicative activity leads to no goal, but is an end in itself. In this
context, the public sphere is spherical activity: the end of the public sphere is the
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activity of the public sphere. This also means that how the public sphere achieve its
ends is always more important than what it achieves.
Act oriented theories often state that the public sphere is a collective effect of
individual action, performed by virtue of common good or public communication in
which reaching consensus (or ultimate agreement) may or may not be result of the
process. This means that all participants gave up their particularistic interests in favor
of pursuit of common good. They held that public sphere is itself is the sole good that it
is achieved by active participation of citizens. Act oriented theorizations have directed
their understanding to a type of communicative act that is perfected for its own sake
and not for the tasks which it could have performed. Their focus is directed towards
maintaining public sphere as self-regulative communicative performance built up in
public situation. The act-oriented accounts of public sphere focuses public sphere as
space of dissidence rather than consent. They often emphasize the preservation of
forms and spaces of spontaneous individual action from encroaching bureaucratic
structures while they built strong correlation between public sphere and a confirmation
of incommensurable plurality (Arendt 1958).
Summary of end and act oriented public sphere theories

End oriented Act-oriented
Means-ends Imposed goals No essential goals
dimension Unavoidable goals Freely-chosen goals
Goal-oriented Avoidable goals
Regulative Dimension Formal: Procedural Reflexive: Self-regulation
Time dimension Future-oriented Present-oriented
Ends beyond itself End in itself
Spatial Dimension Particular General
Organizational Dimension Homogenous Heterogeneous
Deliberate/restrictive Contingent/Spontaneous
Participative Dimension Popular Inclusion Radical Active Inclusion
Closed Open
Communicative Dimension Discursive Dialogical
Conditioned Unconditioned
Harmonious Unharmonious
Operational Dimension Persuasive and Reason based Contestative, Agonistic
Action Value based action
Outcome Dimension Consent-Agreement Civic identity and aporia
Entity Dimension Singular Multiple/multilayered
Structural Dimension Linear Horizontal
Centralizing: Homogeneity and Decentralizing: Plurality and
unifying diversity
Metaphysical Dimension Rationalism and Idealism Pragmatism and Realism
Political Dimension Liberal/Deliberative Communitarian/Republican
Individual Rights Collective/Performative Rights
Negative Freedom Positive Freedom
Representative Theorists Habermas Arendt, Taylor, Fraser
Instead of focusing on single homogeneous public sphere, they conceive public sphere
as multiple spheres as each of them comprised of several public forums or arenas,
isolated by their subject issues and developmental social and economical histories.
Such arenas include local, national and global one as well as official ones versus
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unofficial ones in the context of economical, political, cultural and social life. All
arenas have a certain quasi self-determinacy because there is continuous interaction
between these arenas, they constantly influence each other. At this point, it is important
to mention that all the representations in all different arenas or different public spheres
are results of the function of one or another core of public sphere.
Public Communication and End and Act Oriented Public Sphere Theories
Both act end oriented and act oriented public sphere theories develop the idea of the
public sphere as a normative notion, which is an important part of both social and
political life affording citizens the opportunity to discuss matters of importance for the
common good, helping to form public opinion. Rather than conceiving public sphere as
a state, they shift their point toward functional and structural understanding of
communicative action as the basis of public sphere. Their theories consider
communicative action among free and equal citizens who behave as a public body,
whereby communicative action involves specific means for transmitting meanings and
influencing those who receive them.
In their conceptualizations, public sphere is defended as concrete interactive
relations of public communication. Public communication is a basis for public sphere.
As Aristotle emphasized, humans are political beings as most of their activity is based
on interaction with one another making it a basic human quality. However, each
individual partially includes others in his/her interaction with the surrounding
environment even when they are acting individually; they do so with an awareness of
others. Being awareness of others is part of their self identity and identification. They
always bring elements of their identity to the context of their interaction. Their identity
and identification always seek to relate to others in space and time and to seek social
and political relationships or communication. The main factor that brings people
together is this ongoing, recalled, repetitive action of communication. Public
communication is not only an intrinsic part of the community life but also a basis for
the public sphere.
Communication in public sphere is governed by rules, social norms and the values
of the culture and political order within which the public sphere takes place. In the
public sphere, communication is voluntary or voluntaristic - while being constrained by
a restricted set of communicative choices available in the situation or context. In other
words, public communication involves an active, conscious individual participant, who
may have particular goals or ends that he/she is attempting to contribute. Individual
participants in public communication may take steps in a rational manner, considering
objective factors (structures, choices available, responses of others), but they also have
a subjective frame of reference (personal values, preferences, views).
In other words, communicative acts of the participants are oriented by his/her
preferences and attempts to meet individual goals. At this point, it is important to focus
on the reason why people become involved in communication and how they respond to
matters that are important. This focus leads us to ask questions about characteristics of
participants who are actively involved in an exchange of views, their purposes in
communicating and how they will respond in communicative situations to those
matters. In a corollary, people as a group of similar individuals, with their
complexities, desires and needs are communicating with each other to arrive at
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agreeable terms in a given situation. They are persuaders who are seeking to reach
addressees to come to terms with a situation of understanding. They are responders to
the stimuli of communication. They are actors of communication and both agents of
change and agency of change. They have more than one end they wish to achieve with
any given target addressee. Their ends are multiple. They may have different ends with
different target addressee. The characteristics of their ends often relates to complex
situations. Their ends can be instrumental to achieve other ends (Layered ends). The
addresser's explicit ends may be only a facade for implicit and more important ends
(explicit and implicit ends). That is, ends are often a function of the communicative
situation and the addresser's relationship to it.
This kind of communicative action comes into being when, the action can be
motivated by a certain type of rationality. Max Weber described action within the
paradigm of rationality: instrumental, expressive, affective and habitual (Weber, 1978).
Firstly, the instrumental characteristics of communicative acts refer to the goal
attainment and adaptation aspects of communication. Some communicative acts are
purposive-rational. They are chosen as the most effective means for accomplishing
immediate practical ends. Secondly, communicative acts of an individual contain
expressive characteristics through which communication appears as an end in itself
rather than a means. In this case, the communicative actor is self-aware of his meaning
in the sense of using effective means to achieve a given end, but the end is one that the
individual participant has a pledge. These ends relate to ethical, political, religious
contexts. Thirdly, communicative acts consist of specific affects and feeling states of
individual participants. In the context of spontaneity and reflexivity, it unites ends with
means. Fourthly, communicative acts involve habitual elements. In this case, custom,
tradition, or habits determine the source of communicative acts.
Public communication involves not only acts of an active, conscious agent, who
may or may not have particular goals or ends, but also a dynamic interplay of meanings
in the process of transaction. Acts of participants of communication are continuously
formed and reformed through such interactions; they are not fixed acts for individual
participants, but one that is constantly changing to how others act and respond. That is,
through interaction with others, the individual understands the meaning coupled with
the communicative acts, but may modify and change this, in a referential and reflexive
way. The same communicative acts may have different meanings in different contexts,
for different individuals, and depending on how the one interprets the contexts because
the world does not have inherent meaning in and of itself, but the meaning is socially
formed and developed through experience with the world as one interacts with other
individuals in society. Communication is always joint action with the mutual response
and changes of the acts individual and others a necessary aspect to consider. An
individual participant does not develop his or her communicative acts in isolation, but
the communicative acts emerge from responses of others to one, and from the way that
one responds to and develops his or her own responses to others. In this context,
communication appears as a learned quality of human beings.
The quality and nature of the social and political contexts in which public
communication occurs are considered to have a great influence on the main
characteristics of communicative acts. This means that the development of
communication is facilitated by a bi-directional, reciprocal interaction between the
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individual and the social and political environment. A change in the view point of
participants may trigger a change in the social and political environment, which in turn
affects the actions of individual citizens and so on. In this way, both the citizens and
the social and political environment change over time and affect each other in a
reciprocal fashion and early attainments pave the way for subsequent individual and
social development. For this reason, communication appears as a multi-layered
complex process (Taylor 2004, 83-99). It is the way people interact with the
environment around them and the way they exchange meanings through the process of
receiving, processing and transmitting meanings. The content of public communication
can be both the exchange of thoughts or ideas from one person to another and non-
exchanged structured meanings. Public communication in and among people occurs
many different ways—through touching, seeing hearing, smelling, talking, writing,
gesturing, and reading. Speaking, writing, listening and reading are the most common
ways they communicate. There are many but not unlimited ways of communicating
about any subject matter.
Public communication is a type of association formed by the exchange of ideas
(Taylor, 2004: 94). Public communication, as a relationship association, begins by
transmitting meanings both in words and other methods such as observation, speaking,
writing, body language, tone of voice, looks that go along with words, and so on. In the
process of transmitting meaning, the roles of transmitting meaning (addresser) and
those receiving the meaning (addressee) constantly change between one person and
another (dialogue). However, sometimes the roles between the addresser and addressee
can be fixed and there cannot be an exchange of roles (monologue). In this context,
there are two important ways to categorize the means in which communication occurs.
Firstly, participants of this process communicate internally to themselves in a covert
manner (in their minds) that others cannot understand but simultaneously as the
conversation with the other person ensues, in order to imagine themselves in the
position of other participants of the process and to consider what the other individual
imagines, they contemplate what the reaction of the other individual is likely to be.
While participants engage in communication with other participants, there are
unlimited ways of communicating about any subject matter with the other participants.
Communication with others includes: 1) the meanings that the addresser actually
intends to send, 2) the meanings that the addresser actually wants to send, 3) the
meanings that the addressee interprets. This process has three phases. First, meanings
must be obtained for the readers themselves. Second, meanings are 'transmissive',
passed from an addresser to an addressee. Third, as meanings pass from the addresser
to the addressee, the process of communication becomes more like a process of
communicative action, dialogue, discussion, conversation, negotiation, debate or
construction. During this process, according to their understanding of the meanings that
are communicated, people either separate themselves from each other, in the case of
conflict, or unite forming a community. They share and develop their understanding by
exchanging meanings.
From this perspective, reaching a shared understanding in public communication
requires that the participants are ready to engage in the activity itself and that they see
the relevance of accepting different and contrary meanings to their own. (Gadamer,
1975: 388) This happens on a reciprocal basis, and each participant puts his/her own
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views and thoughts into play on an interactive field, holding their ground yet
simultaneously assessing and addressing counterpoints. The mutual recognition, within
the interplay of meanings, is manifested in a 'fusion of horizons' wherein views and
thoughts emanating from one conceptual world are translated into clauses relevant for
the other.1 As a result, the understandings of each participant are not merged into
singleness, but transformed without necessarily losing their identity in the process.
Openness, as self-disclosure of personal feelings, knowledge or evaluative views
about particular issues is also important for eliciting and provoking understandings. It
occurs in the dynamic process of the possibility of revealing information about oneself
while trying to see the world through the eyes of others. (Bakhtin, 1986: 6-7) This
requires the distancing of oneself from oneself and from one's private rationale, which
allows for a knot of connection that inextricably intertwines the worlds of interlocutors
with many social, cultural and political contexts for understanding. The rise of a knot
of connection contributes to a sense of fluid boundaries among participants with
recognition of the separate and non-merged voices within the chorus of them. (Ostram,
1997: 151-65) At this moment, the process of understanding connects self and other in
an ever-changing joint world of dialogue.
This notion of the joint world of public communication refers to a reciprocal
exchange relation. Interlocutors are dependent on each other’s wordings or actions for
formation of their utterances, but rather interact spontaneously in response to one
another and in reference to the surroundings and momentous occasions, jointly giving
rise to an understanding of views, ideas or issues that neither interlocutor had earlier
considered. Such openness serves as a starting point for self-transformation or
differentiation of the participant from previous positions. The emergent understandings
are available as new potentials and new possibilities that fuse different perspectives
found in one and the same participant.1
This is a case of a rise of a mutual understanding or new understanding that
involves a unity of what is said at the beginning and what is not uttered. This means
that every understanding in the communication process is not only a response to
preceding messages of the given context but also a prompter of understanding.
Participants of public communication are determinant to the extent that they can alter
one another’s responses from their baseline levels. Each response refutes affirms,
supplements, and relies upon other responses, presupposes them to be known, and
somehow considers them. Therefore, each kind of response is filled with various kinds
of reactions to other messages as responsive understanding of the given context of the
1
A similar viewpoint is also expressed by Bakhtin’s analysis of dialogue. For Bakhtin, the key quality of
dialogue is that it simultaneously represents unity of the participants’ perspectives as fusion of one with
another, on the one hand, and completes divergence of views, on the other. In this context, the whole
dialogical process can be viewed with Bakhtinian terms which underlines social process of dialogues as
polyphonic, involving multiple voices, representing dynamic interplay between centripetal (i.e., drive of
unity) and centrifugal (drive of difference) forces as many-sided, variegated and kaleidoscopic immediate
conditions of particular moment. The social and political reality of these forces is produced and reproduced
by dialogical actions of participants. Furthermore, the ongoing dialogue of voices as interplay of
contradictory forces opens up dialogical fields to multi-vocal complexity. For this reason, the most
important thing about the dialogue is not only what kind of different view and idea is exchanged through
dialogue but also what kind of new views transpire through the exchange. The difference produces
difference through dialogue. (Bakhtin, 1981: 272-273) I shall elaborate on this further in the chapters two
and five.
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dialogical situation. In dialogue, responsive understanding of the meaning of a

particular message not only belongs to a particular meaning of utterance as such but
also to the context.
To acquire understanding of context, however, is a task of peculiar difficulty. The
very idea of context means that public communication operates in relation to the
intentional world of the addresser, to the conceptual world of the addressee and to the
interpretation of the immediate social situation and the broader socio-linguistic and
historical milieu that can determine the meaning of utterances. The idea here is not to
get on upper hand in the dialogical process, or to reach an agreement. Rather, it is to
move actively and responsively in understanding what has passed, is present and will
be. This is the fusion of horizons, which involves incorporation of one’s conceptual
repertoire with the other within the process of creation. (Gadamer, 1975: 273)
The fusion of horizons is the link between active and responsive understanding
and communication.2 This connection can be seen in each and every language use.
When an utterance is formulated and addressed to somebody, it responds not only to
previous utterances, but is also intended for mutual understanding. This is created in
the meeting of different and similar voices in oneself or between self and other. The
addresser and addressee are perceived by a reciprocal relationship in which each
simultaneously takes on an active and passive role. Therefore, understanding is not
separately created by each and every participant, but rather it is mutually produced and
shared in a dialogue. (Bakhtin, 1997: 292-93)
Shared and mutual understanding is a communicative act that is mediated through
language and context. Bakhtin (1986: 125-126) says: The person who understands
(including the researcher himself) becomes a participant in the dialogue, although on a
special level (depending on the area of understanding or research)... The observer has
no position outside the observed world, and his observation enters as a constituent part
into the observed object. This pertains fully to entire utterances and relations among
them. They cannot be understood from outside. Understanding itself enters as a
dialogic element in the dialogic system and somehow changes its entire sense.
In this sense we can say that shared and mutual understanding depends not only on
one’s use of language, or on one’s intentionality in formulating an utterance, but also
on the conceptual world of the addressee by which the meaning of the utterance is
understood.3 The conceptual world of the addressee operates as a framework for
2
Bakhtin's ideas of responsive and creative understanding are crucial at this point in the discussion. For
Bakhtin, responsive understanding is important for the continuation of dialogue because response aligned to
interaction between what has been voiced before and to what can be voiced. Responsive understanding
necessarily elicits dialogue in reciprocal form: the listener becomes the speaker. In dialogical situation, the
fact is that when the listener perceives particular the meaning, one simultaneously takes an active,
responsive position toward it. One who has either the same opinion with it or different from particular
understanding (totally or to some extent) adopts these responsive positions for the entire duration of the
process of listening and understanding, from the very beginning. (Bakhtin, 1986: 68) Even when overt
responses are delayed, Bakhtin insists that understanding is actively responsive: sooner or later, what is
heard and actively understood will find its response in the subsequent speech or behavior of the listener.
Thus, all dialogical understanding is actively responsive, and constitutes nothing other than the initial
preparatory stage of a reply.
3
Some philosophers have claimed that the meaning of dialogical act is not something that is relative to the
interpreter; rather the meaning of a dialogical act always is in the act itself. This implies that the meaning of
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interpretation. Thus, the meaning of an utterance arises out of the relation between the
intended act and the attempt to understand it. This relation is both multitudinous and
two-sided: multitudinous because meanings depend on the conceptual world of the
addressee; and two-sided because meanings emerge out of interaction between the
addresser and addressee.
In public communication when a reply is made, it places value on the views
expressed. If the reply were to be merely mechanical with no intention involved, it
would be one that belongs properly to the original addresser. That is, the mechanical
reply confirms or closes off exchange in favor of the original utterance. (Bakhtin, 1997:
110) What takes place, then, is monologue. Bakhtin (1997: 292-293) suggests:
Monologism, at its extreme, denies the existence outside itself of another
consciousness with equal rights and equal responsibilities, another I with equal rights
(thou). With a monologic approach (in its extreme pure form) another person remains
wholly and merely an object of consciousness, and not another consciousness. No
response is expected from it that could change anything in the world of my
consciousness. Monologue is finalized and deaf to other’s response, does not expect it
and does not acknowledge in it any force. Monologue manages without the other, and
therefore to some degree materializes all reality. Monologue pretends to be the ultimate
word. It closes down the represented world and represented persons.
As Bakhtin mentions, in a monologue, the addressee remains wholly and merely
an object of the other’s understanding, and does not embodies another autonomous
understanding. Monologue is hearing-impaired to the other’s autonomous reply; s/he
does not expect it and does not acknowledge in it any decisive force.
In contrast, in dialogue, the utterances become only understandable when one
places them in a specific interpretative context. (Gadamer, 1975: 350) At the same
time, one’s interpretation cannot privilege a particular content as a given or self-
verifying part separate from the whole, from other contents or from the activities of the
addressee. The meanings of utterances do not represent a property of reality but an
interactive field of interpretation and understanding as it relates to its participants. This
implies that the meanings of utterances and their understanding will vary as the
interpretative horizons of addresses change over time or from one participant to
another. The meanings of utterances can never be definitively fixed. What that suggests
is that understanding moves in what Gadamer calls a “hermeneutic circle.”4
To produce meaning in a dialogue, one must always move around from the
meaning of a particular (single utterance) to the meaning of the whole or general (chain
of utterance), and vice versa from whole to part. (Gadamer, 1975: 190-92) The “whole”
may represent the entire meaning of utterances that are expressed in dialogue, the
particular message that passed to the other, and a shared linguistic space to which
utterance belongs— a historical period, personal experiences of participants, and so
on.5 This “whole,” then, provides the horizon against which one gives significance to
dialogical or its products derive from the intentions of its producer. For further discussion of the theory
intentionalism through a consideration of “verstehen,” see W. Outhwaite, 1975.
4
For more detailed discussion of Hermeneutic Circle, See Gadamer, 1975; and Charles Taylor, 1987: 15-57.
5
For example, utterances attain their meaning through the contexts of pronouncement they generate, (as
similar words gain their meaning through the context of sentences), pronouncements through correlative
relations of the dialogue they help to produce and vice versa.
ISSN 1890-5986 21
the “particular.” The meaning of the utterance itself cannot be immediately apparent, if
one attempts to see and understand in the larger context. The contextually retained
meaning of the utterance then changes the meaning of the whole—i.e., dialogue.
When the hermeneutic circle is applied to the parts-whole relations in
understanding the processes of public communication, the understanding of each
message depends on not only the interpretation of the whole but also on previous
messages and the context in which they occurred. In other words, the interaction
between a message and recipient is not a one-off event of communication. New
interpretations help to reconstitute the universe of understanding of the recipients, and
the newly shaped universe of understanding allow recipients to reinterpret the meaning
of the previous message once more. The result of this circularity is a constantly
evolving process of dialogue in which the meaning of both previous message and the
universe of understanding of recipients is altered.
This implies that understanding is always already underway and never completely
finished. For this reason, the understandings of the participants are partial and never
complete, because their horizons are always limited and incomplete, and they exist
inside and not outside dialogue. (Gadamer, 1975: 490-92) Incompleteness of
understanding, however, does not drain the possibility for public communication,
because there is always a difference, which slips away from the comprehension of
participants. Thus, incompleteness becomes a driving force for communication along
with the possibilities of further interpretative efforts at understanding. The
incompleteness and weakness of understanding also make communication exist in flux.
It is this state of flux that makes the interaction of participants multi-sided and
contingent.
Conceptions of Public communication

Public communication, as a necessitated and contingent form of understanding, has
multiple functional and instrumental notions with respect to both its structures and
modes. (Bakhtin, 1997: 125) Functional and instrumental notions of public
communication serve public sphere through the reconciliation of differences, the
promotion of mutual respect, the cooperative pursuit of ends. All these functional and
instrumental notions of public communication depend on the way that dialogue is
structured, or the way that dialogue moves, grows, develops and functions.
Now, the focus will be turned on brief overview three conceptions of communication
based on the way that communication is structured, or the way that dialogue moves,
grows, develops and functions. These are regulative, truth-oriented and storytelling
categories, each of which is informed by different structures and functions of
communication.6
6
There can be more than three type of communication if they are categorized according to the interplay
rationalities of the participants and the goal that they are directed. For example, Walton describes eight type
of communication: Critical discussion, debate, inquiry, negotiation, planning committee, pedagogical,
quarrel and expert consultation. See Walton, 1990: 413. In fact, communication can be divided into more
than eight types, if we consider different criteria for judging various aspects (participation, the use of
language, power relations, creativity) of dialogue. In this context, we can categorize communication as
fictional, open, closed, persuasive, dramatic, elitist, vernacular, verisimilitude, teaching, commentative,
carnivalistic, expository, spontaneous, reasoned, historical, future oriented and momentous and so on.
ISSN 1890-5986 22
Regulative Communication
The regulative communication embodies communicative action systems that are
designed to achieve certain ends such as agreement. Therefore, it is constitutive of
identities, norms and relations between those participated in communicative process. It
has also coordinating character in that it builds shared regulatory norms as to
communicative relations and social practices, which then shapes the basis of
communicative action. Therefore, it establishes operational categories that shift
propositions to the context of regulation. It forms regulation in that produces shared
understanding, common meanings for description of issues and acceptable appropriate
responses. It has functional, coordinative and constitutive categories that are studied by
Jurgen Habermas (Habermas (1984). According to Habermas, communicative action—
which consists of the comprehensibility of the utterance, the truth of its propositional
component, the correctness and appropriateness of its performatory component,
authenticity of the speaking subject—involves a regulative model to guide
communication, which is oriented toward the formation of a rational consensus and
mutual understanding. (Habermas, 1973: 18) That model governs the interaction of
participants who are capable of speech and action and who can follow validity
conditionality (i.e. comprehensibility, truthfulness, rightness and truthfulness) claims in
order to connect speech acts to mutual understanding and agreements. (Habermas 1991:
58-59 and Bernstein, 1983: 163) This model of communication can be called as
regulative dialogue or what Habermas calls an “ideal speech situation.” Ideal speech
situation, in turn, point to the notion of mutually recognized a validity claims that are
constitutive for three basic types of speech acts: a claim to truth rose in constantive
speech acts, a claim to normative rightness raised in regulative speech acts, and a claim
to truthfulness rose in expressive speech acts. The three aspects of validity claims,
rightness of normative context, truth claim of evidential basis, truth claim of expression
characterize different categories of a regulation embodied in speech acts. (Habermas
1991: 56-57) This means that regulative dialogue presupposes agreement about
implicitly raised validity claims as background consensus because of common meaning
of a situation. In order for any consensus to be regulative, each of the implicit validity
claims must be acceptable by rational argumentation, open to questioning of
assumptions, addressed by interlocutress free from inequality, coercion, and
domination. (Habermas, 1996c: 161). Rational argumentation is not only central to the
legitimization but also regulative notion of dialogue. Regulation is coming to a
common meaning of a subject or rule.
Focusing on mutually recognized validity claims as basis of regulation in the
sphere of communication creates a situation for strong idealization of agreement in the
communicative situation. More specifically, these validity claims reflect the regulative
functions of speech acts: (a) external nature: the interlocutors must make a true
statement, or make correct truth claims (b) internal nature: interlocutors must be
truthful in expressing their beliefs, intentions, feelings etc. and (c) society: interlocutors
must perform a speech act that is “right” with respect to a given normative context.
The dialogical processes by which different validity claims of speech acts are brought
to a satisfactory resolution appeals to these three levels to set regulative basis (as
common values, customs, roles and guidelines) for what constitutes the right or
appropriate kind of action. (Held, 1980: 338) Valid are only those norms or procedures
ISSN 1890-5986 23
that meet (or can meet) the goal of common understanding, with the approval of all
affected in their capacity as participants of dialogue. (Habermas, 1996b: 296-99)
Regulative communication, which is oriented to achieving and sustaining,
reviewing consensus, rests on the recognition of two conditions: equality and freedom.
The first is equality. In this context, equality refers the equal rights of participants and
equal respect for personal dignity. (Habermas, 1991: 200) This means that all
participants have an equal voice in the decision-making process for equal consideration
of their interests. All concerned agree upon whatever consensus emerges. The second
condition concerns the freedom of all participants to accept or reject any proposal. Any
proposal to be considered valid must meet the condition that all affected parties can
freely accept the consequences and side effects of the consensus that is implemented.
In essence, this situation means that participants of dialogue should have continuous
mutual reference to an agreed set of rules or meanings in order to strengthen the
regulative quality of that exchange. (Habermas 1991:84-86)
Regulative communication requires coherent, consistent and persuasive arguments
on the part of its participants, who each make his/her own case. The aim here is not to
assess particular propositions simply in terms of whether they are true or false, but to
discuss critically various propositions in order to establish consensus. Regulative
communication represents a reflective rationality or a process of inference. Every
reasoned case can be inferred (i.e., justified or refused) by another reasoned case.
(Habermas, 1996c: 188-189) As a result, the proposal supported by the best arguments
should not only prevail but can give rise to new ones.
Regulative communication has a pragmatist notion of discursive justification. This
idea refers to the moral and political validation of the plurality of claims and
differences among participants. In essence, regulative dialogue does not acknowledge
differences without approving all differences as morally and politically valid.
Regulative communication does not deny our embodied and embedded differences, but
aims at developing moral capabilities and dispositions and encouraging transformations
that can yield a point of view suitable to all. In regulative dialogue, difference serves as
a starting point for reflection and action, but it must be settled rationally. (Habermas,
1996c: 121) Persuasion and agreement are necessary conditions for this settlement.
(Habermas, 1996c: 194-195)
Truth-oriented Communication
It is confrontational communication in that it exposes discrepancies, contradictions,
rifts in meanings and understandings. It contains communicative means (i.e. rhetoric)
to test people and ideas, including one’s own ideas. It begins with an interlocutor’s
claims. Once one interlocutor makes a claim, the other interlocutor tries to elicit further
perspectives and proceeds to show that series of claim are inconsistent and
contradictory. The result of truth-oriented communication, however, is not truth or
definitive conclusions, but a kind of perplexity that allows the rise of new
understanding. Therefore, truth-oriented communication can be described as the joint
undertaking for proposing claims, opposing claims, formulating arguments and putting
forth counter-arguments for discovery of the truth. It is the union of questioning and
answering, which frees one from one’s own particular limitations and situations
through the invention, and reinvention of one’s self-understanding. Hence, truth-
ISSN 1890-5986 24
oriented communication is a way of drawing forth latent, unformed understandings and

facilitating the discovery of truths.
The concept of truth-oriented communication is represented by Socratic dialogues.
(Bakhtin, 1997: 110) Socratic dialogues contains distinctive mode of inquiry for the
truth. At the heart of this inquiry is questioning and this questioning is initialized with
question of “What is it?” A Socratic question is answered by a definition or logos, an
account that says what for example Justice, or for any property X, what X is. In relation
to questioning, truth-oriented dialogue embodies means of dialectical for serving to
justify or refute viewpoints. It also contains ongoing argumentation in which each
participant uses reason or logic in order to persuade one another. Each participant puts
forward his or her case, offering accurate or appropriate support for conclusions. This
happens in the pattern of claim, reasoning and counter-claim, which lead toward a kind
of new understanding or knowing. This new understanding plays a positive role in the
dialogue; it forms the heart of and guide for the communicative process in the form of
the central paradoxes of the dialogue.
Truth-oriented communication is preoccupied with the force of the inductive
arguments. The better argument is the central effect to refute, clarify, or support moral
definition of truth. Moral truth, in the practical concerns of political life, is a question
of confronting public failings and limitations or of reconciling and combining
opposites. Truth-oriented communication is a critical scrutiny of the moral truth for
demonstrating one trying to offer the general definition that one does not know about
what justice is and therefore cannot justify particular actions for everybody. The
inductive arguments are not deductions from particulars to a generalization, but
deduction from one proposition or a set of coordinate propositions to an acceptable
proposition, to another coordinate proposition, or through a more acceptable
proposition to another coordinate proposition. In such an inductive argumentation,
action of proposed meanings and counter-proposals would go on until a satisfactory
response was found.
The chief parts of truth oriented communication are “rational accounts” which
examine or justify beliefs or theories. Here justification is characterized as giving a
rational account of the belief. Nevertheless, the justification of a certain belief can
never be final, as it is always conditioned. Paradoxically, the dialogue must remain
unsatisfactory (i.e., non-final) in order to remain dialogical (i.e., open). A final and
universal justification of something is empirically and logically impossible in truth-
oriented dialogue, because when such a justification is made the basis for having a
communication no longer exists. Justification, then, is thought of as something that is
always out of the reach of the participants. Nevertheless, at the same time, the
participants must presuppose its possibility in order for public communication to
succeed. This suggests the truth should be seen as an ever-receding horizon of public
communication.
Celebratory Communication
Celebratory Communication is a concept associated with Bakhtin’s observations on the
groundbreaking communicative vitality of the carnival. According to this scholar, to
celebrate in the space of carnival means to participate in dialogue—to ask questions, to
heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue, people participate wholly and
ISSN 1890-5986 25
throughout their whole way of life. (Bakhtin, 1997: 279) Carnival is the open-ended
dialogue and by its very nature is an interactive “live event” played out at a point of
dialogical meeting among multiple actions. In this sense, it is promotes a type of
freedom. In promoting a sense of freedom, liberation, and creativity, carnival’s
celebratory dialogue satirically and paradoxically undermined the formal, the abstract,
the ideological, and the spiritual and released people temporarily from official
restraints. In giving expression to the world turned upside down theme of celebratory
dialogue, participants engaged in many forms of criticism in erasing old hierarchies,
producing new equalities. It has been noted. (Bakhtin, 1984: 10) that the erase of
hierarchy had especially profound effects, as it allowed “free and familiar contact”
between people otherwise completely separated by social designation.
[S]uch free, familiar contacts were deeply felt and formed an essential element of
the life of the carnival spirit. People were, so to speak, reborn for new, purely human
relations. These truly human relations were not only a fruit of imagination or abstract
thought; they were experienced. The utopian ideal and the realistic merged in this
carnival experience, unique of its kind.
Bakhtin elucidates the significance of carnival to illuminate the celebratory public
communication not as dyadic, much less a binary phenomenon but as a manifold
phenomenon that allows for unusual combinations: “the sacred with the profane, the
lofty with the low, the great with the insignificant, and the wise with the stupid.”
Bakhtin (1997:132) suggest: Folk-carnival “debates” between life and death, darkness
and light, winter and summer, etc., permeated with the pathos of change and the joyful
relativity of all things, debates which did not permit thought to stop and congeal in a
one-sided seriousness or in a stupid fetish for definition or singleness of meaning.
In this context, celebratory public communication represents a way of challenging
hierarchies existing in religious, political, and moral values, norms, and prohibitions. It
brings a critical sprit, instead of strictly maintained hierarchy of official culture. It tries
to reflect absolute equality and means for promoting empathy and understanding
among the diversity of voices. It is a mode of mutual examination, a therapeutic
engagement of self- and other-exploration; and a basis for shaping uncoerced social
and political conditions for freeing human consciousness, thought, and imagination for
new potentialities. (Bakhtin, 1984: 10) It prepares the way for social political and
cultural change without creating divisions between performers and spectators because
its participants do not watch but live in it. (Bakhtin, 1997: 122 and 1984: 7) It creates
change not with mechanical or rhetorical use of language but through parody and
satire. Therefore, it is language free from a presupposed truthfulness of values. It does
not distinguish between virtues and vice. Its discourses are comprised of contrasts—of
virtues and non-virtues that are both free and enslaved. It does not have end but it is
end in itself. It defies the sources of power by ridiculing truths and teasing authorities,
and in such a way makes the political life closer and more familiar while it shakes
conventions of social life.
It has indirect, ironic language use and discourse that combines the new with the
old, death with birth; end with beginning. (Bakhtin, 1981: 75) Its indirect discourse is
double-voiced, at least insofar as one discourse represents another’s discourse with two
or more different response. Embracing double voicedness, celebratory dialogue resides
in a system of multiplicity in which a meaning simultaneously stands two different, and
ISSN 1890-5986 26
opposite, things within a particular narration. Celebratory public communication is a

dialogized heteroglossia in and of itself, but it also can qualify, or be qualified by, other
forms of diversity of voices such as polyphony. Hence, celebratory public
communication is stripped of its universal elements, thereby exactly gains its deepest
significances and becomes particular the situation of a communication in which the
myriad responses one might make at any particular point, but any one of responses
cannot easily be framed in one a specific discourse. Celebratory public communication
is a way of communication made up of a roiling mass of languages, each of which has
its own distinct signs. Thus, it does not participate in a unitary ideological voice in a
multitude of discourses. Celebratory public communication could only be understood
as an active responsibility that calls for an active listening to each voice from the
perspective of the others. Its rationale revolves around the test and provocation of ideas
while it interrogates ready-made truths as the official voice of established beliefs. In
doing so, it allows free and familiar contact between people otherwise completely
separated by social designation. (Bakhtin 1984:10) It does not lead to definite
conclusions; it only liberates participants from existing viewpoints, conventions and
established truths, from all that is traditional and universally accepted. It represents the
rise of a new spirit of ambivalence. (Bakhtin, 1997: 126) Its revitalizing spirit sanctifies
freedom as creativity and frees people to have a new outlook on existing social and
political relations and to experience a completely new order of things.
Celebratory communication is guided by freedom from rhetoric and the reasoned
and mechanized process of action. It refers to a means to an end but also a medium
through which participants discover their own meanings, either by contrast or by
appropriating the meaning of others. It represents a kind of self-governing practice, a
free move in the game whose rules are contingent rather than necessary. It gives voice
to the other as it exposes differences and overcomes fears. It is an open-ended, personal
and public practice that celebrates other ways of knowing, doing and being, thereby
upsetting the status quo and promoting a robust and multi-vocalic communication of
the independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses. (Bakhtin, 1997: 124)
Conclusion
Public sphere is a historical concept which has been under development since the times
of Aristotle. Aristotle refers to the public sphere as a social and political space in which
citizens come together to talk about issues of public concern to form civic opinions. For
Aristotle, social space is understood metaphorical not a physical sense. The basic
quality of this social space is public communication. Public sphere facilitates public
communication by providing a social space for citizen interaction. In other words,
public sphere as social space is constituted in the systemic interactive practices of
citizens.
There are different conceptual traditions of public sphere. In these traditions,
public sphere is referred to as both a descriptive and a normative concept. As a
descriptive concept, public sphere indicates historical processes of emergence and
development of public communication in democratic societies. As a normative concept,
it refers to criteria for a good public communication and principles that guide— or
should guide— public realm. Therefore, there are different ideas of public sphere.
Some set of theories suggest that public communication should operate through a
ISSN 1890-5986 27
single overarching sphere. For these theories, single overarching sphere is better for
coordinated communicative action (ideal speech situation) and consensus building.
These theories also suggest that public communication in public sphere should be
confined to persuasive argumentation about common interest. Other sets of theories
hold that public sphere can better be envisaged of as a plurality of overlapping,
intersecting, and competing communicative spaces. These groups of theory argue that
since one cannot presume common interest in advance of public communication that
occurs in the realm of public sphere. One should not restrict the end of public sphere
with preconceived goals. They argue that end-oriented theories minimize the function
of public sphere in political society because they structure public sphere solely for the
purpose of structuring it. If public sphere is to be fully open and free for participation
of people then the end of the public sphere must be an end in itself.
ISSN 1890-5986 28
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Models of Public Sphere in Political Philosophy

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WORKING PAPER SERIES

Models of Public Sphere in Political

© 2008 by Gürcan Koçan

The views expressed in this paper do not

The statement of purpose for the

ISSN 1890-5986 (online)

The formation of public forums for the scrutiny of policies of government is an

Theorizing Public Sphere: Descriptive or Normative?

Descriptive Theorization of Public Sphere

Normative Theory of Public Sphere

Ideal versus Non-ideal Theory

Justificatory Theories and Critical Theories

The Intersection of Positive and Normative Theory

Descriptive Theory in the Service of Normative Theory

Descriptive Theory as a Constraint on Normative Theory

Concepts of Public sphere

appraises the notions of indeterminacy, contingency, diversity and difference between

Habermas conceives the public sphere as both an institution and a form of

spatially differentiated and multilayered notions of public spheres: micro (sub-cultural),

liberal, deliberative, agonistic or republican model of democracy) and paradigms of

Act and End Oriented Public Sphere Theories

traits of communicative action in the realm of public sphere (Habermas 1991).

Summary of end and act oriented public sphere theories

dialogical situation. In dialogue, responsive understanding of the meaning of a

Conceptions of Public communication

oriented communication is a way of drawing forth latent, unformed understandings and

opposite, things within a particular narration. Celebratory public communication is a

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