scholarly journals Spaces, Places, and Geographies of Public Spheres: Exploring Dimensions of the Spatial Turn

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Annie Waldherr ◽  
Ulrike Klinger ◽  
Barbara Pfetsch
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Spatial Turn ◽  
Spatial Concepts ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Location Data ◽  
Geographical Inequalities ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
Media And Communication ◽  
Opening Up

For decades, scholars have been calling out a spatial turn in media and communication studies. Yet, in public sphere research, spatial concepts such as space and place have mainly been used metaphorically. In recent years, the abundance of digital trace data offers new opportunities to locate communicative interactions, sparking new interest in the spatial turn in media and communication and opening up new perspectives on spaces and places also within public sphere research. Digital location data enables one to: study the places and spaces in which (semi-)public communication is embedded; uncover geographical inequalities between countries, regions, cities, and peripheries; and highlight the local contexts of public spheres. This thematic issue gathers some of these endeavors in one place, bringing together conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions that spell out the spatiality of public spheres in detail and combine the analysis of spaces, places, and geographies with long-standing concepts of public sphere research.

The Public Sphere

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Herborth ◽  
Oliver Kessler
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Contentious Politics ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Empirical Inquiry ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Opening Up

The term “public” is predominantly used in International Relations (IR), often appearing as an attribute in collocations such as “public goods” or “public opinion.” The study of public spheres can be meaningfully situated within the scope of the emerging field of International Political Sociology (IPS). At the heart of the study of public spheres as an integral part of IPS is the challenge of theorizing the relations between public spheres and an emerging postnational political order. One perennial concern of IPS that can be addressed through the study of public spheres is the relation between empirical and normative inquiry. In addition, the study of public spheres constitutes an interdisciplinary arena that contributes to the process of opening up IR to the theoretical and methodological toolkit of adjacent intellectual fields. In this context, the study of social movements comes to mind, especially when it directly tackles processes of “contentious politics.” An analysis of the way in which the term “public” is used in IR can offer important insights into the social-theoretical presuppositions and implicit concepts of social and international order that go along with it. The study of public spheres is not confined to the study of a set of firmly delineated empirical phenomena, which may or may not be observed. It can also be used to elucidate the oft-neglected problem of how political authority is constituted in terms of both theoretical and empirical inquiry.

scholarly journals The Public Sphere in the Field of Power

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Calhoun
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Public Sphere

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured—precisely by exclusion—are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent “counterpublics” may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain.

Explaining Citizens’ Participation in a Transnational European Public Sphere

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 667-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Gerhards ◽  
Silke Hans
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Professional Status ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Education Professional ◽  
European Public ◽  
Foreign Media ◽  
The Individual

Globalization and Europeanization processes have led to an increasing public sphere deficit. This deficit can be addressed by a transnationalization of the individual countries’ national public spheres. This requires a perception of discussions in other national public spheres, a condition which is met if citizens of a nation-state follow reporting of issues in other countries. Using Eurobarometer surveys, we examine the extent to which citizens of 27 European countries engage with foreign media and the factors that determine participation in a transnational public sphere. Only a small minority of EU citizens engage with foreign media, and there are considerable differences between countries and citizens. Using multilevel techniques we find that besides other factors education, professional status and multilingualism play a crucial role in explaining participation in a transnational public sphere, resources which are distributed very unevenly among citizens. Thus, participation in a transnational public sphere is an issue of social inequality.

scholarly journals Archives, libraries and museums in the Nordic model of the public sphere

2018 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håkon Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Theoretical Research ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Archival Science ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of ALM organizations within a Nordic model of the public sphere. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper discussing the role of archives, libraries and museums in light of a societal model of the Nordic public sphere. Throughout the discussions, the author draw on empirical and theoretical research from sociology, political science, media studies, cultural policy studies, archival science, museology, and library and information science to help advance our understanding of these organizations in a wider societal context. Findings The paper shows that ALM organizations play an important role for the infrastructure of a civil public sphere. Seen as a cluster, these organizations are providers of information that can be employed in deliberative activities in mediated public spheres, as well as training arenas for citizens to use prior to entering such spheres. Furthermore, ALM organizations are themselves public spheres, as they can serve specific communities and help create and maintain identities, and solidarities, all of which are important parts of a civil public sphere. Research limitations/implications Future research should investigate whether these roles are an important part of ALM organizations contribution to public spheres in other regions of the world. Originality/value Through introducing a theoretical model developed within sociology and connecting it to ongoing research in archival science, museology, and library and information science, the author connects the societal role of archives, libraries, and museums to broader discussions within the social sciences.

Selective Solidarity and Discursive Modulation in the Brazilian Public Sphere

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (6) ◽  
pp. 729-740
Author(s):  
Vitor Blotta
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Communicative Rationality ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates

Abstract In this article the author argues that solidarity can be used as an analytical concept in order to understand the dynamics of discourses in the public spheres of contemporary democracies. He begins by discussing conceptions of solidarity in political theory, followed by descriptions of its manifestations in recent public debates in different countries. After that, he relates solidarity to Habermas’s formal-pragmatic concept of communicative rationality, which enables him to sketch out notions such as discursive and selective solidarity, as well as discursive modulations of solidarity, which are formulated through analogies of discourse theory and musical theory. In the last part of the article, the author applies these notions to three specific examples of public debates in the Brazilian public sphere.

Facebook as a Tool for Enhancing Alternative/Counter-Public Spheres in Cyprus

2013 ◽  
pp. 107-132
Author(s):  
Christiana Karayianni
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Broadcast Media ◽  
The Public ◽  
Equal Footing ◽  
The Press

The chapter is based on a study focusing on the uses and impact of different forms/media of communication on bicommunal relations in Cyprus. It presents a case study of bicommunal communication through Facebook Groups that took place in Cyprus between 2007-2010. The discussion identifies the ways in which certain Facebook Groups facilitate bicommunal communication in Cyprus and explains why they can be considered part of a counter-public sphere. The analysis suggests that groups whose voices or discourses are excluded from the public domain/sphere can find through the use of tools like Facebook Groups alternative forms of organising and debate, which places them—at least as far as this medium is concerned—on an equal footing with discourses sanctioned by power and hegemonic institutions, such as the press and broadcast media.

The broken chain of learning: the crisis of religion and belief literacy and its origins

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Adam Dinham ◽  
Alp Arat ◽  
Martha Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
World Religions ◽  
The West ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Public Religion ◽  
Other World ◽  
Post War

This chapter discusses the loss of religion and belief literacy, which it locates in two public spheres: welfare and education. The period before the loss of religion and belief literacy in Britain and the West was, by its very nature, almost entirely Christian. Although there was a degree of plurality, and an awareness of some other religions, these were largely treated as essentially exotic. Yet, at the very moment that people stopped paying (much) attention to religion and belief, they entered a period of dramatic change. This has meant massive declines in Christianity, increases in other world religions, a huge growth in atheism and non-religion, and a shift towards informal and revival forms of religion and belief, especially associated with varying ideas of spirituality. The resulting challenges of religion and belief literacy are rooted here in the post-war period, in which the deliberate dilution of religious socialisation post-1945 has been followed by the accidental invisibility of religious social action and its disconcerting re-emergence after 1980, and then a striking renewal of religion and belief as a public sphere issue around the turn of the century, and especially after 9/11. What emerges is a tension between a loss of public religion and belief and its subsequent re-emergence after a prolonged period in which it was not really talked about.

Battles of Ideas Between the Legal and the Legitimate

2021 ◽  
pp. 145-161
Author(s):  
Paula Castro ◽  
Sonia Brondi ◽  
Alberta Contarello
Keyword(s):  
Social Studies ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Many

This chapter discusses how social psychology can offer theoretical contributions for a better understanding of the relations between the institutional and public spheres and how this may impact change in ecological matters. First, it introduces the difference between natural and agreed—or chosen—limits to human action and draws on Sophocles’s Antigone to illustrate this and discuss how legitimacy has roots in the many heterogeneous values of the public sphere/consensual universe, while legality arises from the institutional/reified sphere. Recalling some empirical research in the area of social studies of sustainability, it then shows how a social representations perspective can help us understand the dynamic and interdependent relations between the institutional or reified sphere and the consensual or common sense universe—and their implications for social change and continuity.

Discursive turns and critical junctures

2020 ◽  
pp. 198-213
Author(s):  
Donatella della Porta ◽  
Pietro Castelli Gattinara ◽  
Konstantinos Eleftheriadis ◽  
Andrea Felicetti
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Citizenship Rights ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Opening Up

The concluding chapter goes back to the theoretical debates presented in chapter 1, synthetizing the main empirical results of the various parts of our analysis as well as reflecting on the theoretical implications. From the theoretical point of view, the aim has been to analyze transformative events in order to trace their effects on the content and form of the debate in multiple public spheres. The research addressed discursive turns during a critical juncture that changed in the political debate. Empirically, the Charlie Hebdo controversy represented a most important moment in the assessment of collective understandings of citizenship, broadly understood as setting the boundaries of who is inside and who is outside. Opening up to future research in the field, the chapter speculates on the impact of the debate we have addressed in structuring the evolving debate over citizenship and citizenship rights.

The deliberative qualities of the debates from a comparative perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-96
Author(s):  
Donatella della Porta ◽  
Pietro Castelli Gattinara ◽  
Konstantinos Eleftheriadis ◽  
Andrea Felicetti
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Substantial Variation ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Public Spheres ◽  
Critical Junctures ◽  
Democratic Norms ◽  
Charlie Hebdo

Chapter 4 discusses the deliberative qualities of the Charlie Hebdo debate in alternative public spheres. The chapter explains the way in which deliberation has been operationalized for qualitative analysis. It then focuses on the deliberative qualities of the Charlie Hebdo debate among the three main groups of public-sphere actors under examination (far-right, left-wing, and religious groups). There is substantial variation in the deliberative democratic qualities displayed within and across the three public spheres while there is limited variation across countries. In order to account for this phenomena, at the end of the chapter, we reflect on the nature of critical junctures specifically and differences in different public sphere actors’ dispositions toward deliberative and democratic norms.

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