Civilian victimization is the intentional use of violence against noncombatants in a conflict.
It includes both lethal forms of violence (such as killings), as well
as non-lethal forms of violence such as torture, forced expulsion, and
rape.
Scholars have identified various factors that may either provide incentives for the use of violence against civilians, or create incentives for restraint. Violence against civilians occurs in many types of civil conflict,
and can include any acts in which force is used to harm or damage
civilians or civilian targets. It can be lethal or nonlethal. During
periods of armed conflict, there are structures, actors, and processes at a number of levels that affect the likelihood of violence against civilians.
Violence towards civilians is not “irrational, random, or the result of ancient hatreds between ethnic groups.”
Rather, violence against civilians may be used strategically in a
variety of ways, including attempts to increase civilian cooperation and
support; increase costs to an opponent by targeting their civilian
supporters; and physically separate an opponent from its civilian
supporters by removing civilians from an area.
Patterns of violence towards civilians can be described at a
variety of levels and a number of determinants of violence against
civilians have been identified.
Describing patterns of violence
Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín and Elisabeth Jean Wood have proposed a conceptualization of political violence that describes an actor in terms of its pattern of violence, based on the "repertoire, targeting, frequency, and technique in which it regularly engages." Actors can include any organized group fighting for political objectives. Repertoire covers the forms of violence used; targeting identifies the those attacked in terms of social group; frequency is the measurable occurrence of violence; and techniques are the types of weapons or technology used. This framework can be applied to observed patterns of violence without considering the intentionality of the actor. Other frameworks focus on motivation of the actor.
Repertoires may include both lethal forms of violence against
civilians such as killings, massacres, bombings, and terrorist attacks,
and nonlethal forms of violence, such as forced displacement and sexual violence. In indirect violence heavy weapons such as tanks or fighter planes
are used remotely and unilaterally. In direct violence perpetrators act
face-to-face with the victims using small weapons such as machetes or rifles.
Targets may be chosen collectively, as members of a particular ethnic, religious, or political group. This is sometimes referred to as categorical violence.
Targets may also be chosen selectively, identifying specific
individuals who are seen as opposing a political group or aiding its
opponents.
Techniques can vary greatly depending on the level of technology
and amount of resources available to combatants. There are considerable
impacts of technology over time, including the introduction of new
technologies of rebellion. For example, changes in communication
infrastructure may affect violence against civilians. If such technology
facilitates organization by armed groups and increases contests over
territory, violence against civilians in those areas is also likely to
increase.
As government surveillance of digital information increases, the use of
targeted, selective violence against civilians by governments has been
shown to increase.
Analysis of levels of violence
Theoretical
explanations at various levels of analysis can co-exist and interact
with one another. The following levels of analysis can be useful in
understanding such dynamics:
International
At
the international level, institutions, ideologies and the distribution
of power and resources shape technologies of rebellion and political
interactions, including both international and domestic wars. During the
Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union provided military and financial backing to both governments and rebellious groups, who engaged in irregular civil wars. Such conflicts frequently involve the use of violence to control civilians and territory. The decade following the dissolution of the Soviet Union was marked by a decline in worldwide battle deaths and the number of armed conflicts in the world.
International norms and ideas also influence conflict and the use of violence against civilians. The period following World War II, from 1946 to 2013, has also been regarded as showing a decline in conflict.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1946.
International actors signed the Genocide Convention in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions in 1949, formalizing protections for noncombatants and international norms for human rights and humanitarian standards.
Transnational non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have become active in surfacing information, advocating for human rights, mobilizing international public opinion, and influencing both social norms and international law.
Interactions between foreign governments and rebel groups who
receive their support can affect violence against civilians. Groups
receiving external support become less dependent on local civilian
populations and have less incentive to limit violence against civilians.
Foreign aid to rebels is associated with higher levels of both
combat-related death and civilian targeting. However, foreign actors
that are democracies or have strong human rights lobbies are less likely
to support groups that engage in violence against civilians.
The international strategic environment also shapes government
perceptions of threat. Perceptions of threat due to external military
intervention may lead to increases in governmental mass killing of
civilians and violence against domestic out-groups.
The scrutiny and criticism of international and domestic actors
can affect government use of violence, by increasing the perceived costs
of violence against civilians. Governments and rebel groups that are
vulnerable domestically and that seek international legitimacy are more
likely to comply with international humanitarian law and exercise
restraint toward civilians.
Domestic and subnational
Political
organization occurs not just at a national level, but at many levels,
including provinces, states, legislative districts, and cities. In many
countries, national and local politics differ in scale and in the
extent to which subnational governments afford and support their
citizen's political rights and civil liberties.
Relationships between government (at various levels), armed
groups and domestic populations affect violence against civilians.
Governments that rely on a broad base of domestic and institutional
support are more likely to exercise restraint toward civilians. These
may include democratic governments, inclusive governments, and
governments in which institutions have not consolidated power.
Similarly, rebel groups that need the support of a broad domestic
constituency or of local civilians are less likely to target civilians
and to engage in terrorism. Rebel groups whose political constituents
live in the area that they control are more likely to use governance
structures like elections to obtain cooperation and less likely to use political violence.
Rebel groups that control areas inhabited by nonconstituents are more
likely to use violence to obtain resources and cooperation.
Ideology
may strongly influence the ways in which governments and rebels define
their constituencies, affecting patterns of violence. Where national,
subnational or local institutions follow exclusionary ideologies, ethnic
or other out-groups may become identified as nonconstituents and
targeted, sometimes to the point of displacement, ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Violence against civilians may vary over space and time with the extent to which military forces are contesting a territory. Stathis Kalyvas
has theorized that selective violence is more likely to occur where
control is asymmetric, with one group exercising dominant but not
complete control of an area. Indiscriminate violence may be more likely
to occur where one side controls an area. It has also been shown that indiscriminate violence is more likely to occur at a distance from a country's center of power.
Opinions differ widely on whether there is a relationship between
the relative military capacity of a government or rebel group and the
likelihood that it will engage in patterns of violence against
civilians. This may also vary depending on the type of violence
involved.
However, there is evidence that cutting off access to external sources
of support may cause a group to become more dependent on the support of
its local population and less likely to engage in violence against
civilians.
Organizational
At
the organizational level, researchers have examined the dynamics and
ideology of armed groups: how they recruit and train their members, how
organizational norms about the use of violence against civilians are
established and maintained, and the role of group leaders and political
ideology in shaping organizations and behavior. While some studies
argue that violence against civilians reflects a lack of control over an
organization's members and the absence of norms that inhibit violence,
other researchers emphasize the social dynamics of armed groups and ways
in which they may actively break down social norms that inhibit
violence.
Jeremy Weinstein has argued that armed groups develop certain
organizational structures and characteristics as a result of their
available resources. According to this view, organizations that depend
on external resources are predicted to attract low-commitment members,
and have trouble controlling their use of violence against civilians.
Organizations that are dependent on local resources will tend to attract
higher-commitment, ideologically motivated members from local
communities, which will help to control their use of violence against
civilians.
Other researchers focus on organizational structure and its
effects on behavior, without assuming that they are driven by resource
endowment.
They suggest that processes of education, training, and
organizational control are important both in producing strategic
violence and in establishing restraints against the use of violence against civilians.
The ideology of armed groups is a key factor influencing both their organizational structure and member behavior.
Some Marxist groups, which emphasize political education, have been less likely to use violence against civilians.
The ideology of other armed groups, including governments, can
actively promote violence and direct it at particular targets. Such
groups often use "exclusionary ethnic or national ideologies or
narratives" which have resulted in mass killings and genocide.
Accounts from multiple countries have documented the "practice,
norms, and other socialization processes" which armed groups have used
to gain recruits, socialize group members, establish new norms of
behavior and build group cohesion. Methods can include forced
recruitment, systematic brutalization, and gang rape. Such groups
create a “culture of violence” in which "horrifying acts of cruelty" are
directed at both group members and civilians and become routine. The
risk to civilians from such organizations is high.
Individual
On
an individual level, people may be influenced to participate in armed
conflicts due to economic motivations or incentive structures. Research
in this area often views violence against civilians as a by-product of
economic processes such as competition for resources.
Researchers have also studied emotional and psychological factors
relating to the use of violence, which are generally related to other
factors such as strategy, opportunity, socialization, and other group-level processes. The emotions of shame, disgust, resentment, and anger have been linked to violence against civilians. While research suggests that emotions such as fear
affect the polarization of attitudes, material and structural
opportunities are important mediators of the expression of violence.
At the individual level, researchers are examining the category
of “civilian" in greater detail, to better understand the use of
violence against different types of noncombatants. Such research also
emphasizes the agency of civilians who are themselves actors during
wartime and the ways in which they may respond to armed groups.
There is evidence to suggest that local civilian institutions can sometimes mitigate violence by governments and rebel groups.
Research also examines concerns such as the use of violence against humanitarian aid workers, and the targeting of women.
Consequences of violence against civilians
A
relatively new area of research asks how individuals, groups,
communities and domestic and international audiences respond to violence
against civilians. Legacies of violence can last for many years and
across generations, long after the violence occurred. Evidence on the
effects of wartime violence on ethnic polarization is mixed.
Research from various countries suggests that civilian responses
to violence are not uniform. However, civilians do blame actors who
have acted violently against their communities, and may withdraw their
support, provide support to opposing forces, or vote for an opposing
political party in elections. Such outcomes are more likely to occur in
the area where the violence was experienced, and when the perpetrators
of violence are considered outsiders.
Individuals are likely to respond to violence by rejecting the
ideology of the perpetrating group, particularly if the violence was
severe.
Those exposed to violence are likely to engage in prosocial behavior and to increase their political engagement.
Research on the effectiveness of groups using violence against civilians in gaining political ends is mixed. Macro-level evidence suggests that rebel groups are likely to gain
support from Western international actors in situations where
governments are employing violence against civilians and rebel groups
are showing restraint towards civilians.
The United Nations is more likely to deploy peacekeepers
when conflicts involve high levels of violence towards civilians.
However, peacekeeping missions are more likely to be effective at
protecting civilians from rebel groups than from governments.
Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, asphyxiation, beatings, shootings, improper takedowns, and unwarranted use of tasers.
History
Nine police officers subduing a member of the public in Egypt
The term "police brutality" was first used in Britain in the mid-19th century, by The Puppet-Show magazine (a short-lived rival to Punch) in September 1848, when they wrote:
Scarcely a week passes without
their committing some offence which disgusts everybody but the
magistrates. Boys are bruised by their ferocity, women insulted by their
ruffianism; and that which brutality has done, perjury denies, and
magisterial stupidity suffers to go unpunished. [...] And police brutality is becoming one of our most "venerated institutions!"
The first use of the term in the American press was in 1872 when the Chicago Tribune reported the beating of a civilian who was under arrest at the Harrison Street Police Station.
In the United States, it is common for marginalized groups to perceive the police as oppressors, rather than protectors or enforcers of the law, due to the statistically disproportionate number of minority incarcerations.
Hubert G. Locke wrote:
When used in print or as the battle cry in a black power
rally, police brutality can by implication cover several practices,
from calling a citizen by his or her first name to death by a
policeman's bullet. What the average citizen thinks of when he hears the
term, however, is something midway between these two occurrences,
something more akin to what the police profession knows as "alley
court"—the wanton vicious beating of a person in custody, usually while handcuffed, and usually taking place somewhere between the scene of the arrest and the station house.
— Police Brutality and Civilian Review Boards: A Second Look (1966–1967)
In
recent times, as of 2024, there have been more protests and action
against the genocide in Palestine. On 8 April 2024, 'Besetzung Gegen
Besatzung' - 'Occupy Against Occupation' was set up in front of the
Reichstag Building. It is a pro-Palestinian camp by activists, with the demand for the German government to stop exporting arms to Israel, and to stop criminalising solidarity with the Palestinian movement.
The camp lasted for two weeks. There were tents, an information booth
about the history of the genocide, and field kitchens set up. Protesters
were encouraged to sleep over in the camp or return frequently to
provide support in numbers. There were community activities and
workshops happening frequently to boost the sense of community and
morale in the camp.
Police violence and brutality were very prominent at the camp,
with the police forcefully evicting the occupants from the Bundestag
area for various reasons. The police gave the camp many different
restrictions and rules to abide by. The police came up with more new
restrictions as the camp went on. This made it confusing for everyone at
the camp as the restrictions were ever-changing. The police would not
provide sufficient information about the restrictions, making it
difficult to determine what is prohibited or not. From banning languages
that are not German or English to be used, to criminalizing the songs
and materials shared at their workshops. These restrictions can be seen to have extended to the bigger Berlin society previously. Since early October 2023, Palestinian keffiyeh
scarves in schools have been banned by the Berlin state authorities.
With the reason that it could be a “threat to school peace”.
If one does not abide by the rules set by the police, they could
be arrested. These result in instances of the police violence --
arresting, shoving, grabbing, and forcefully holding down people who are
resisting arrest. Police violence was most rampant and visible during
the camp's eviction. Police were using heavy violence through riot
control tactics like kettling the big groups of protesters, eventually
arresting a huge number of them. In a Youtube video published by MEMO,
'German police violently attack Gaza solidarity camp in Berlin', police
were seen grabbing protesters' faces and limbs as they arrest them or
attempt to pull them away from where they were standing or sitting. The
police can be seen forcibly choking protesters, while also throwing
punches, and kicking at them. Affected protesters reported to have
suffered injuries -- scratches, bleeding from open wounds, broken bones
etc.
The main demands of Pro-Palestinian camps in the USA were for universities to divest from Israeli military such that their universities no longer accept research funding from them. And calling for an academic boycott
-- from ending academic partnerships with Israeli institutions and
organizing for an association or union to support the boycott. These are
part of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The BDS movement has an extensive website showing how one can show their support.
Columbia, USA
Pro-Palestine encampment was started on April 17 2024, on Columbia University's South Lawn. The encampment demanded that the University divest from companies with ties to Israel, and to be transparent with its direct and indirect investments.
There were various tents set up, with many banners and posters stating
the encampment's demands. The university quickly called the police in to
clear the encampment. The New York Police Department arresting 108
individuals. This was said to be the largest case of arrests on campus since 1968.
The police were forcibly removing protesters with a lot of force. Officers were seen to be carrying batons and zip ties for tying the arrestees' hands together.
California, USA
Pro-Palestinian
encampment was set up at the University of Southern California (USC).
The encampment has been in the Alumni Park, on USC's campus for almost 2
weeks. The university call the Los Angeles police to disperse the camp,
which ended in 93 people being arrested.
More people and students returned soon after to resist the police's
efforts to clear the encampment. The police reported no arrests while
clearing the encampment for the second time.
The encampment at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA),
was met with more violent police brutality. It was reported that more than 200 people were arrested. With many people being heavily injured. A man was struck in the chest with a rubber bullet at one point.
Causes
Ian Tomlinson after being pushed to the ground by police in London (2009). He collapsed and died soon after.Protest against police brutality after the eviction of unemployed demonstrators occupying the Post Office in Vancouver, Canada, 1938
Hard on drugs campaigns
In
nations with a reputation for having a high number of drug-related
issues, including gang violence, drug trafficking, and overdose deaths,
one common solution that government will enact is a collective campaign
against drugs that spans the entirety of the state's establishment.
Changes to address these issues encompass education, bureaucracy, and,
most notably, law enforcement policy and tactics. Law enforcement
agencies expand and receive more funding to attack drug problems in
communities. Acceptance of harsher policing tactics grows as well, as an
any means necessary philosophy develops within the law enforcement community and the militarization of local police forces.
However, many studies have concluded that these efforts are in vain, as
the drug market has grown in such nations despite anti-drug policies.
For example, in the United States, critics of the War on Drugs waged by
the government have been very vocal about the ineffectiveness of the
policy, citing an increase in drug-related crimes and overdoses since
President Nixon first introduced this policy.
Legal system
A
type of government failure that can result in the normalization of
police brutality is a lack of accountability and repercussions for
officers mistreating civilians. While it is currently commonplace for
civilians to hold officers accountable
by recording them, the actual responsibility of police oversight rests
heavily on the criminal justice system of a given nation, as police
represent the enforcement of the law. One method of increasing police
accountability that has become more common is the employment of body
cameras as a part of police uniforms.
However, the effectiveness of body cameras has been called into
question due to the lack of transparency shown in police brutality cases
where the footage is withheld from the public. In many cases of police
brutality, the criminal justice system has no policy in place to condemn
or prohibit police brutality. Certain nations have laws that permit
lawful, violent treatment of civilians, like qualified immunity, which
protects officers from being sued for their use of violence if their
actions can be justified under the law.
Police officers are legally permitted to use force. Jerome Herbert Skolnick
writes in regards to dealing largely with disorderly elements of the
society, "some people working in law enforcement may gradually develop
an attitude or sense of authority over society, particularly under
traditional reaction-based policing models; in some cases, the police
believe that they are above the law."
There are many reasons why police officers can sometimes be
excessively aggressive. It is thought that psychopathy makes some
officers more inclined to use excessive force than others. In one study,
police psychologists surveyed officers who had used excessive force.
The information obtained allowed the researchers to develop five unique
types of officers, only one of which was similar to the bad apples
stereotype. These include personality disorders; previous traumatic
job-related experience; young, inexperienced, or authoritarian officers;
officers who learn inappropriate patrol styles; and officers with
personal problems. Schrivers categorized these groups and separated the group that was the most likely to use excessive force.
However, this "bad apple paradigm" is considered by some to be an "easy
way out". A broad report commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police (RCMP) on the causes of misconduct in policing calls it "a
simplistic explanation that permits the organization and senior
management to blame corruption on individuals and individual
faults – behavioural, psychological, background factors, and so on,
rather than addressing systemic factors." The report continues to discuss the systemic factors, which include:
Pressures to conform to certain aspects of "police culture", such as the Blue Code of Silence, which can "sustain an oppositional criminal subculture protecting the interests of police who violate the law" and a "'we-they' perspective in which outsiders are viewed with suspicion or distrust"
Command and control structures with a rigid hierarchical foundation
("results indicate that the more rigid the authoritarian hierarchy, the
lower the scores on a measure of ethical decision-making" concludes one
study reviewed in the report); and
Deficiencies in internal accountability mechanisms (including internal investigation processes).
The use of force by police officers is not kept in check in many jurisdictions by the issuance of a use of force continuum,
which describes levels of force considered appropriate in direct
response to a suspect's behavior. This power is granted by the
government, with few if any limits set out in statutory law as well as common law.
Violence used by police can be excessive despite being lawful,
especially in the context of political repression. Police brutality is
often used to refer to violence used by the police to achieve
politically desirable ends (terrorism) and, therefore, when none should
be used at all according to widely held values and cultural norms in the
society (rather than to refer to excessive violence used where at least
some may be considered justifiable).
Studies show that there are officers who believe the legal system
they serve is failing and that they must pick up the slack. This is
known as "vigilantism", where the officer-involved may think the suspect
deserves more punishment than what they may have to serve under the
court system.
During high-speed pursuits of suspects, officers can become angry
and filled with adrenaline, which can affect their judgment when they
finally apprehend the suspect. The resulting loss of judgment and
heightened emotional state can result in inappropriate use of force. The
effect is colloquially known as "high-speed pursuit syndrome".
The Amnesty International 2007 report on human rights also documented widespread police misconduct in many other countries, especially countries with authoritarian regimes
In the UK, the reports into the death of New Zealand teacher and anti-racism campaigner Blair Peach
in 1979 was published on the Metropolitan Police website on 27 April
2010. They concluded that Peach was killed by a police officer, but that
the other police officers in the same unit had refused to cooperate
with the inquiry by lying to investigators, making it impossible to
identify the actual killer.
In the UK, Ian Tomlinson was filmed by an American tourist being hit with a baton and pushed to the floor as he was walking home from work during the 2009 G-20 London summit protests.
Tomlinson then collapsed and died. Although he was arrested on
suspicion of manslaughter, the officer who allegedly assaulted Tomlinson
was released without charge. He was later dismissed for gross misconduct.
In the UK, in 2005, a young Brazilian man was arrested and shot by
Metropolitan Police in Central London. The man, Jean Charles Menezes,
died later.
In Serbia, police brutality occurred in numerous cases during protests against Slobodan Milošević, and has also been recorded at protests against governments since Milošević lost power.
The most recent case was recorded in July 2010, when five people,
including two girls, were arrested, handcuffed, beaten with clubs, and
mistreated for one hour. Security camera recordings of the beating were
obtained by the media and public outrage when released. Police officials, including Ivica Dačić,
the Serbian minister of internal affairs, denied this sequence of
events and accused the victims "to have attacked the police officers
first". He also publicly stated that "police [aren't] here to beat up
citizens", but that it is known "what one is going to get when attacking
the police".
Episodes of police brutality in India include the Rajan case, the death of Udayakumar, and of Sampath.
Police violence episodes against peaceful demonstrators appeared during the 2011 Spanish protests. Furthermore, on 4 August 2011, Gorka Ramos, a journalist of Lainformacion was beaten by police and arrested while covering 15-M protests near the Interior Ministry in Madrid.
A freelance photographer, Daniel Nuevo, was beaten by police while
covering demonstrations against the Pope's visit in August 2011.
In Brazil, incidents of police violence have been very well-reported
and Brazil has one of the highest prevalences of police brutality in
the world today
South Africa from apartheid to today has had incidents of police brutality, though police violence is not as prevalent as during the apartheid years
There have been several instances of police brutality towards protesters in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests
Investigation
In England and Wales, an independent organization known as the Independent Police Complaints Commission
(IPCC) investigates reports of police misconduct. They automatically
investigate any deaths caused by or thought to be caused by, police
action.
In Africa, there exist two such bodies: one in South Africa and
another one in Kenya known as the Independent Policing Oversight
Authority.
In the United States, more police are wearing body cameras after the shooting of Michael Brown. The US Department of Justice
has made a call to action for police departments across the nation to
implement body cameras in their departments so that further
investigation will be possible.
Measurement
Police brutality is measured based on the accounts of people who have experienced or seen it,
as well as the juries who are present for trials involving police
brutality cases, as there is no objective method to quantify the use of
excessive force for any particular situation.
In addition to this, police brutality may also be filmed by police body cameras,
worn by police officers. Whereas body cams could be a tool against
police brutality (by prevention, and by increasing accountability).
However according to Harlan Yu, executive director from Upturn, for this
to occur, it needs to be embedded in a broader change in culture and
legal framework. In particular, the public's ability to access the body camera footage can be an issue.
In 1985, only one out of five people thought that police
brutality was a serious problem. Police brutality is relative to a
situation: it depends on if the suspect is resisting. Out of the people
who were surveyed about their account of police brutality in 2008, only
about 12 percent felt as if they had been resisting.
Although the police force itself cannot be quantified, the opinion of
brutality among various races, genders, and ages can. African Americans,
women, and younger people are more likely to have negative opinions
about the police than Caucasians, men, and middle-aged to elderly
individuals.
Independent oversight
Various community groups have criticized police brutality. These groups often stress the need for oversight by independent civilian review boards and other methods of ensuring accountability for police action.
Umbrella organizations and justice committees usually support those affected. Amnesty International is a non-governmental organization focused on human rights with over threemillion
members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the
organization is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and
end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose
rights have been violated".
Tools used by these groups include video recordings, which are sometimes broadcast using websites such as YouTube.
Civilians have begun independent projects to monitor police
activity to try to reduce violence and misconduct. These are often
called "Cop Watch" programs.
The public sphere (German: Öffentlichkeit) is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence
political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the people as a
whole." Such a discussion is called public debate and is defined as the
expression of views on matters that are of concern to the public—often,
but not always, with opposing or diverging views being expressed by
participants in the discussion. Public debate takes place mostly through the mass media, but also at meetings or through social media, academic publications and government policy documents.
The term was originally coined by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas
who defined the public sphere as "made up of private people gathered
together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the
state". Communication scholar Gerard A. Hauser
defines it as "a discursive space in which individuals and groups
associate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to
reach a common judgment about them".
The public sphere can be seen as "a theater in modern societies in
which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk" and "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed".
History
Describing
the emergence of the public sphere in the 18th century, Habermas noted
that the public realm, or sphere, originally was "coextensive with
public authority", while "the private sphere comprised civil society in the narrower sense, that is to say, the realm of commodity exchange and of social labor". Whereas the "sphere of public authority" dealt with the state, or realm of the police, and the ruling class, or the feudal authorities (church, princes and nobility) the "authentic 'public sphere'",
in a political sense, arose at that time from within the private realm,
specifically, in connection with literary activities, the world of
letters.
This new public sphere spanned the public and the private realms, and
"through the vehicle of public opinion it put the state in touch with
the needs of society".
"This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it [is] a site for
the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be
critical of the state."
The public sphere "is also distinct from the official economy; it is
not an arena of market relations but rather one of the discursive
relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for
buying and selling".
These distinctions between "state apparatuses, economic markets, and
democratic associations... are essential to democratic theory". The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state. The study of the public sphere centers on the idea of participatory democracy, and how public opinion becomes political action.
The ideology
of the public sphere theory is that the government's laws and policies
should be steered by the public sphere and that the only legitimate
governments are those that listen to the public sphere. "Democratic governance rests on the capacity of and opportunity for citizens to engage in enlightened debate".
Much of the debate over the public sphere involves what is the basic
theoretical structure of the public sphere, how information is
deliberated in the public sphere, and what influence the public sphere
has over society.
Definitions
Jürgen Habermas claims "We call events and occasions 'public' when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs".
This 'public sphere' is a "realm of our social life in which something
approaching public opinion can be formed. Access is guaranteed to all
citizens".
This notion of the public becomes evident in terms such as public
health, public education, public opinion or public ownership. They are
opposed to the notions of private health, private education, private
opinion, and private ownership. The notion of the public is
intrinsically connected to the notion of the private.
Habermas stresses that the notion of the public is related to the notion of the common. For Hannah Arendt, the public sphere is therefore "the common world" that "gathers us together and yet prevents our falling over each other".
Habermas defines the public sphere as a "society engaged in critical public debate".
Conditions of the public sphere are according to Habermas:
The formation of public opinion
All citizens have access
Conference in unrestricted fashion (based on the freedom of
assembly, the freedom of association, the freedom to expression and
publication of opinions) about matters of general interest, which
implies freedom from economic and political control.
Debate over the general rules governing relations.
Most contemporary conceptualizations of the public sphere are based on the ideas expressed in Jürgen Habermas' book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, which is a translation of his Habilitationsschrift,Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit:Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. The German term Öffentlichkeit
(public sphere) encompasses a variety of meanings and it implies a
spatial concept, the social sites or arenas where meanings are
articulated, distributed, and negotiated, as well as the collective body
constituted by, and in this process, "the public".
The work is still considered the foundation of contemporary public
sphere theories, and most theorists cite it when discussing their own
theories.
The bourgeois
public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private
people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere
regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to
engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in
the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity
exchange and social labor.
Through this work, he gave a historical-sociological account of the
creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a "bourgeois" public sphere
based on rational-critical debate and discussion:
Habermas stipulates that, due to specific historical circumstances, a
new civic society emerged in the eighteenth century. Driven by a need
for open commercial arenas where news and matters of common concern
could be freely exchanged and discussed—accompanied by growing rates of
literacy, accessibility to literature, and a new kind of critical
journalism—a separate domain from ruling authorities started to evolve
across Europe. "In its clash with the arcane and bureaucratic practices
of the absolutist state, the emergent bourgeoisie gradually replaced a
public sphere in which the ruler's power was merely represented before
the people with a sphere in which state authority was publicly monitored
through informed and critical discourse by the people".
In his historical analysis, Habermas points out three so-called
"'institutional criteria" as preconditions for the emergence of the new
public sphere. The discursive arenas, such as Britain's coffee houses,
France's salons, and Germany's Tischgesellschaften "may have
differed in the size and compositions of their publics, the style of
their proceedings, the climate of their debates, and their topical
orientations", but "they all organized discussion among people that
tended to be ongoing; hence they had a number of institutional criteria
in common":
Disregard of status: Preservation of "a kind of social
intercourse that, far from presupposing the equality of status,
disregarded status altogether. ... Not that this idea of the public was
actually realized in earnest in the coffee houses, salons, and the
societies; but as an idea, it had become institutionalized and thereby
stated as an objective claim. If not realized, it was at least
consequential." (loc. cit.)
Domain of common concern: "... discussion within such a public
presupposed the problematization of areas that until then had not been
questioned. The domain of 'common concern' which was the object of
public critical attention remained a preserve in which church and state
authorities had the monopoly of interpretation. ... The private people
for whom the cultural product became available as a commodity profaned
it inasmuch as they had to determine its meaning on their own (by way of
rational communication with one another), verbalize it, and thus state
explicitly what precisely in its implicitness for so long could assert
its authority." (loc. cit.)
Inclusivity: However exclusive the public might be in any given
instance, it could never close itself off entirely and become
consolidated as a clique; for it always understood and found itself
immersed within a more inclusive public of all private people, persons
who – insofar as they were propertied and educated – as readers,
listeners, and spectators could avail themselves via the market of the
objects that were subject to discussion. The issues discussed became
'general' not merely in their significance, but also in their
accessibility: everyone had to be able to participate. ... Wherever the
public established itself institutionally as a stable group of
discussants, it did not equate itself with the public but at most
claimed to act as its mouthpiece, in its name, perhaps even as its
educator – the new form of bourgeois representation" (loc. cit.).
Habermas argued that the bourgeois society cultivated and upheld
these criteria. The public sphere was well established in various
locations including coffee shops and salons, areas of society where
various people could gather and discuss matters that concerned them. The
coffee houses in London society at this time became the centers of art
and literary criticism, which gradually widened to include even the
economic and the political disputes as matters of discussion. In French
salons, as Habermas says, "opinion became emancipated from the bonds of
economic dependence".
Any new work, or a book or a musical composition had to get its
legitimacy in these places. It not only paved a forum for
self-expression but in fact had become a platform for airing one's
opinions and agendas for public discussion.
The emergence of a bourgeois public sphere was particularly supported
by the 18th-century liberal democracy making resources available to
this new political class to establish a network of institutions like
publishing enterprises, newspapers and discussion forums, and the
democratic press was the main tool to execute this. The key feature of
this public sphere was its separation from the power of both the church
and the government due to its access to a variety of resources, both
economic and social.
As Habermas argues, in due course, this sphere of rational and universalistic politics,
free from both the economy and the State, was destroyed by the same
forces that initially established it. This collapse was due to the
consumeristic drive that infiltrated society, so citizens became more
concerned about consumption than political actions. Furthermore, the
growth of capitalistic economy led to an uneven distribution of wealth,
thus widening economic polarity. Suddenly the media became a tool of
political forces and a medium for advertising rather than the medium
from which the public got their information on political matters. This
resulted in limiting access to the public sphere and the political
control of the public sphere was inevitable for the modern capitalistic
forces to operate and thrive in the competitive economy.
Therewith emerged a new sort of
influence, i.e., media power, which, used for purposes of manipulation,
once and for all took care of the innocence of the principle of
publicity. The public sphere, simultaneously restructured and dominated
by the mass media, developed into an arena infiltrated by power in
which, by means of topic selection and topical contributions, a battle
is fought not only over influence but over the control of communication
flows that affect behavior while their strategic intentions are kept
hidden as much as possible.
Counterpublics, feminist critiques and expansions
Although Structural Transformation
was (and is) one of the most influential works in contemporary German
philosophy and political science, it took 27 years until an English
version appeared on the market in 1989. Based on a conference on the
occasion of the English translation, at which Habermas himself attended,
Craig Calhoun (1992) edited Habermas and the Public Sphere
– a thorough dissection of Habermas' bourgeois public sphere by
scholars from various academic disciplines. The core criticism at the
conference was directed towards the above stated "institutional
criteria":
Hegemonic dominance and exclusion: In "Rethinking the Public Sphere," Nancy Fraser
offers a feminist revision of Habermas' historical description of the
public sphere, and confronts it with "recent revisionist
historiography". She refers to other scholars, like Joan Landes, Mary P. Ryan and Geoff Eley,
when she argues that the bourgeois public sphere was in fact
constituted by a "number of significant exclusions." In contrast to
Habermas' assertions on disregard of status and inclusivity, Fraser
claims that the bourgeois public sphere discriminated against women and
other historically marginalized groups: "... this network of clubs and
associations – philanthropic, civic, professional, and cultural – was
anything but accessible to everyone. On the contrary, it was the arena,
the training ground and eventually the power base of a stratum of
bourgeois men who were coming to see themselves as a "universal class"
and preparing to assert their fitness to govern." Thus, she stipulates a
hegemonic tendency of the male bourgeois public sphere, which dominated
at the cost of alternative publics (for example by gender, social
status, ethnicity and property ownership), thereby averting other groups
from articulating their particular concerns.
Bracketing of inequalities: Fraser makes us recall that "the
bourgeois conception of the public sphere requires bracketing
inequalities of status". The "public sphere was to be an arena in which
interlocutors would set aside such characteristics as a difference in
birth and fortune and speak to one another as if they were social and economic peers". Fraser refers to feminist research by Jane Mansbridge,
which notes several relevant "ways in which deliberation can serve as a
mask for domination". Consequently, she argues that "such bracketing
usually works to the advantage of dominant groups in society and to the
disadvantage of subordinates." Thus, she concludes: "In most cases, it
would be more appropriate to unbracket inequalities in the sense of
explicitly thematizing them – a point that accords with the spirit of
Habermas' later communicative ethics".
The problematic definition of "common concern": Nancy Fraser points out that "there are no naturally given, a priori
boundaries" between matters that are generally conceived as private,
and ones we typically label as public (i.e. of "common concern"). As an
example, she refers to the historic shift in the general conception of
domestic violence, from previously being a matter of primarily private
concern, to now generally being accepted as a common one: "Eventually,
after sustained discursive contestation we succeeded in making it a
common concern".
A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina, satirical drawing of a women's counterpublic in action in the 1775 tea boycott
Nancy Fraser
identified the fact that marginalized groups are excluded from a
universal public sphere, and thus it was impossible to claim that one
group would, in fact, be inclusive. However, she claimed that
marginalized groups formed their own public spheres, and termed this
concept a subaltern counter public or counter-public.
Fraser worked from Habermas' basic theory because she saw it to be "an indispensable resource" but questioned the actual structure and attempted to address her concerns. She made the observation that "Habermas stops short of developing a new, post-bourgeois model of the public sphere".
Fraser attempted to evaluate Habermas' bourgeois public sphere, discuss
some assumptions within his model, and offer a modern conception of the
public sphere.
In the historical reevaluation of the bourgeois public sphere,
Fraser argues that rather than opening up the political realm to
everyone, the bourgeois public sphere shifted political power from "a
repressive mode of domination to a hegemonic one".
Rather than rule by power, there was now rule by the majority ideology.
To deal with this hegemonic domination, Fraser argues that repressed
groups form "Subaltern counter-publics" that are "parallel discursive
arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate
counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their
identities, interests, and needs".
Benhabib notes that in Habermas' idea of the public sphere, the
distinction between public and private issues separates issues that
normally affect women (issues of "reproduction, nurture and care for the
young, the sick, and the elderly")
into the private realm and out of the discussion in the public sphere.
She argues that if the public sphere is to be open to any discussion
that affects the population, there cannot be distinctions between "what
is" and "what is not" discussed. Benhabib argues for feminists to counter the popular public discourse in their own counter public.
The public sphere was long regarded as men's domain whereas women were supposed to inhabit the private domestic sphere. A distinct ideology that prescribed separate spheres for women and men emerged during the industrial revolution.
The concept of heteronormativity is used to describe the way in which those who fall outside of the basic male/female dichotomy of gender or whose sexual orientations are other than heterosexual cannot meaningfully claim their identities, causing a disconnect between their public selves and their private selves. Michael Warner
made the observation that the idea of an inclusive public sphere makes
the assumption that we are all the same without judgments about our
fellows. He argues that we must achieve some sort of disembodied state
in order to participate in a universal public sphere without being
judged. His observations point to a homosexual counter public, and
offers the idea that homosexuals must otherwise remain "closeted" in
order to participate in the larger public discourse.
Rhetorical
Demonstration against French nuclear tests
in 1995 in Paris "This interaction can take the form of... basic
"street rhetoric" that "open[s] a dialogue between competing factions".
Gerard Hauser proposed a different direction for the public sphere than previous models. He foregrounds the rhetorical
nature of public spheres, suggesting that public spheres form around
"the ongoing dialogue on public issues" rather than the identity of the
group engaged in the discourse.
Rather than arguing for an all-inclusive public sphere, or the
analysis of tension between public spheres, he suggested that publics
were formed by active members of society around issues. They are a group of interested individuals who engage in vernacular discourse about a specific issue.
"Publics may be repressed, distorted, or responsible, but any
evaluation of their actual state requires that we inspect the rhetorical
environment as well as the rhetorical act out of which they evolved,
for these are the conditions that constitute their individual
character".
These people formed rhetorical public spheres that were based in
discourse, not necessarily orderly discourse but any interactions
whereby the interested public engages each other.
This interaction can take the form of institutional actors as well as
the basic "street rhetoric" that "open[s] a dialogue between competing
factions."
The spheres themselves formed around the issues that were being
deliberated. The discussion itself would reproduce itself across the
spectrum of interested publics "even though we lack personal
acquaintance with all but a few of its participants and are seldom in
contexts where we and they directly interact, we join these exchanges
because they are discussing the same matters".
In order to communicate within the public sphere, "those who enter any
given arena must share a reference world for their discourse to produce
awareness for shared interests and public opinions about them". This world consists of common meanings and cultural norms from which interaction can take place.
Political Graffiti
on the South Bank of the Thames in London 2005, "even though we lack
personal acquaintance with all but a few of its participants and are
seldom in contexts where we and they directly interact, we join these
exchanges because they are discussing the same matters".
The rhetorical public sphere has several primary features:
it is discourse-based, rather than class-based.
the critical norms are derived from actual discursive practices.
Taking a universal reasonableness out of the picture, arguments are
judged by how well they resonate with the population that is discussing
the issue.
intermediate bracketing of discursive exchanges. Rather than a
conversation that goes on across a population as a whole, the public
sphere is composed of many intermediate dialogs that merge later on in
the discussion.
The rhetorical public sphere was characterized by five rhetorical
norms from which it can be gauged and criticized. How well the public
sphere adheres to these norms determine the effectiveness of the public
sphere under the rhetorical model. Those norms are:
permeable boundaries: Although a public sphere may have a
specific membership as with any social movement or deliberative
assembly, people outside the group can participate in the discussion.
activity: Publics are active rather than passive. They do not
just hear the issue and applaud, but rather they actively engage the
issue and the publics surrounding the issue.
contextualized language: They require that participants
adhere to the rhetorical norm of contextualized language to render their
respective experiences intelligible to one another.
believable appearance: The public sphere must appear to be believable to each other and the outside public.
tolerance: In order to maintain a vibrant discourse, others opinions need to be allowed to enter the arena.
In all this Hauser believes a public sphere is a "discursive space in
which strangers discuss issues they perceive to be of consequence for
them and their group. Its rhetorical exchanges are the bases for shared
awareness of common issues, shared interests, tendencies of extent and
strength of difference and agreement, and self-constitution as a public
whose opinions bear on the organization of society."
This concept that the public sphere acts as a medium in which
public opinion is formed as analogous to a lava lamp. Just as the lamp's
structure changes, with its lava separating and forming new shapes, so
does the public sphere's creation of opportunities for discourse to
address public opinion, thereby forming new discussions of rhetoric. The
lava of the public which holds together the public arguments is the
public conversation.
Media
Habermas
argues that the public sphere requires "specific means for transmitting
information and influencing those who receive it".
Habermas' argument shows that the media are of particular
importance for constituting and maintaining a public sphere.
Discussions about the media have therefore been of particular importance
in public sphere theory.
As actors in the political public sphere
According
to Habermas, there are two types of actors without whom no political
public sphere could be put to work: professionals in the media system
and politicians.
For Habermas, there are five types of actors who make their appearance on the virtual stage of an established public sphere:
(a) Lobbyists who represent special interest groups;
(b) Advocates who either represent general interest groups or
substitute for a lack of representation of marginalized groups that are
unable to voice their interests effectively;
(c) Experts who are credited with professional or scientific knowledge in some specialized area and are invited to give advice;
(d) Moral entrepreneurs who generate public attention for supposedly neglected issues;
(e) Intellectuals who have gained, unlike advocates or moral
entrepreneurs, a perceived personal reputation in some field (e.g., as
writers or academics) and who engage, unlike experts and lobbyists,
spontaneously in public discourse with the declared intention of
promoting general interests.
Libraries have been inextricably tied to educational institutions in
the modern era having developed within democratic societies. Libraries
took on aspects of the public sphere (as did classrooms), even while
public spheres transformed in the macro sense. These contextual
conditions led to a fundamental conservative rethinking of civil
society institutions like schools and libraries.
YouTube
Habermas argues that under certain conditions, the media act to facilitate discourse in a public sphere.
The rise of the Internet has brought about a resurgence of scholars
applying theories of the public sphere to Internet technologies.
For example, a study by S. Edgerly et al.
focused on the ability of YouTube to serve as an online public sphere.
The researchers examined a large sample of video comments using the
California Proposition 8 (2008) as an example. The authors argue that
some scholars think the online public sphere is a space where a wide
range of voices can be expressed due to the "low barrier of entry"
and interactivity. However, they also point at a number of limitations.
Edgerly et al. say that the affirmative discourse presupposes that
YouTube can be an influential player in the political process and that
it can serve as an influential force to politically mobilize young
people. YouTube has allowed anyone and everyone to be able to get any
political knowledge they wish. The authors mention critiques that say
YouTube is built around the popularity of videos with sensationalist
content. It has also allowed people to broadcast themselves for a large
public sphere, where people can form their own opinions and discuss
different things in the comments. The research by Edgerly, et al.
found that the analyzed YouTube comments were diverse. They argue that
this is a possible indicator that YouTube provides space for public
discussion. They also found that YouTube videos' style influences the
nature of the commentary. Finally, they concluded that the video's
ideological stances influenced the language of the comments. The
findings of the work suggest that YouTube is a public sphere platform.
Additional work by S. Buckley reflected on the role that news content, specifically US cable news,
contributed towards the formation of the public sphere. His research
analysed a total of 1239 videos uploaded by five news organisations and
investigated the link between content and user engagement. Through both
content and sentiment analysis, it was suggested that the sentiment of
the language used in the titles of the videos had an impact upon the
public, with negatively sentimented titles generated more user
engagement. Buckley suggested that due to the aspect of emotionality
that is present in news content that due to the ongoing process of media
hybridization, a new conceptual framework of the public sphere that
acknowledges how both thoughtful discussions as well as ones which
express feelings in an overt way needs to be developed.
Limitations of media and the internet
Some,
like Colin Sparks, note that a new global public sphere ought to be
created in the wake of increasing globalization and global institutions,
which operate at the supranational level.
However, the key questions for him were, whether any media exists in
terms of size and access to fulfil this role. The traditional media, he
notes, are close to the public sphere in this true sense. Nevertheless,
limitations are imposed by the market and concentration of ownership. At
present, the global media fail to constitute the basis of a public
sphere for at least three reasons. Similarly, he notes that the
internet, for all its potential, does not meet the criteria for a public
sphere and that unless these are "overcome, there will be no sign of a
global public sphere".
German scholars Jürgen Gerhards and Mike S. Schäfer conducted a study in 2009 in order to establish whether the Internet
offers a better and broader communication environment compared to
quality newspapers. They analyzed how the issue of human genome research
was portrayed between 1999 and 2001 in popular quality newspapers in
both Germany and the United States in comparison to the way it appeared
on search engines at the time of their research. Their intention was to
analyze what actors and what sort of opinions the subject generated in
both print and the Internet and verify whether the online space proved
to be a more democratic public sphere, with a wider range of sources and
views. Gerhards and Schäfer say they have found "only minimal evidence
to support the idea that the internet is a better communication space as
compared to print media". "In both media, communication is dominated by (bio- and natural) scientific actors; popular inclusion does not occur".
The scholars argue that the search algorithms select the sources of
information based on the popularity of their links. "Their gatekeeping,
in contrast to the old mass media, relies mainly on technical
characteristics of websites".
For Gerhards and Schäfer the Internet is not an alternative public
sphere because less prominent voices end up being silenced by the search
engines' algorithms. "Search engines might actually silence societal
debate by giving more space to established actors and institutions". Another tactic that supports this view is astroturfing. The Guardian columnist George Monbiot
said that Astroturfing software, "has the potential to destroy the
internet as a forum for constructive debate. It jeopardizes the notion
of online democracy".
Virtual
There has been an academic debate about how social media impacts the public sphere. The sociologists Brian Loader and Dan Mercea give an overview of this discussion.
They argue that social media offers increasing opportunities for
political communication and enable democratic capacities for political
discussion within the virtual public sphere. The effect would be that
citizens could challenge governments and corporations' political and
economic power. Additionally, new forms of political participation and
information sources for the users emerge with the Internet that can be
used, for example, in online campaigns.
However, the two authors point out that social media's dominant uses are
entertainment, consumerism, and content sharing among friends. Loader
and Mercea point out that "individual preferences reveal an unequal
spread of social ties with a few giant nodes such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook and YouTube attracting the majority of users". They also stress that some critics have voiced the concern that there is a lack of seriousness in political communication on social media platforms. Moreover, lines between professional media coverage and user-generated content would blur on social media.
The authors conclude that social media provides new opportunities
for political participation; however, they warn users of the risks of
accessing unreliable sources. The Internet impacts the virtual public
sphere in many ways, but is not a free utopian platform as some
observers argued at the beginning of its history.
Mediated publicness
John Thompson
criticises the traditional idea of public sphere by Habermas, as it is
centred mainly in face-to-face interactions. On the contrary, Thompson
argues that modern society is characterized by a new form of "mediated
publicness", whose main characteristics are:
Despatialized (there is a rupture of time/space. People can see
more things, as they do not need to share the same physical location,
but this extended vision always has an angle, which people do not have
control over).
Non dialogical (unidirectional. For example, presenters on TV are
not able to adapt their discourse to the reactions of the audience,
since they are visible to a wide audience but that audience is not
directly visible to them. However, internet allows a bigger
interactivity).
Wider and more diverse audiences. (The same message can reach people
with different education, different social class, different values and
beliefs, and so on.)
This mediated publicness has altered the power relations in a way in
which not only the many are visible to the few but the few can also now
see the many:
"Whereas the Panopticon renders many people visible to a
few and enables power to be exercised over the many by subjecting them
to a state of permanent visibility, the development of communication
media provides a means by which many people can gather information about
a few and, at the same time, a few can appear before many; thanks to
the media, it is primarily those who exercise power, rather than those
over whom power is exercised, who are subjected to a certain kind of
visibility".
However, Thompson also acknowledges that "media and visibility is a double-edged sword"
meaning that even though they can be used to show an improved image (by
managing the visibility), individuals are not in full control of their
self-presentation. Mistakes, gaffes or scandals are now recorded
therefore they are harder to deny, as they can be replayed by the media.
The public service model
Examples of the public service model include BBC in Britain, and the ABC
and SBS in Australia. The political function and effect of modes of
public communication has traditionally continued with the dichotomy
between Hegelian State and civil society. The dominant theory of this
mode includes the liberal theory of the free press. However, the public
service, state-regulated model, whether publicly or privately funded,
has always been seen not as a positive good but as an unfortunate
necessity imposed by the technical limitations of frequency scarcity.
According to Habermas's concept of the public sphere,
the strength of this concept is that it identifies and stresses the
importance for democratic politics of a sphere distinct from the economy
and the State. On the other hand, this concept challenges the liberal
free press tradition form the grounds of its materiality, and it
challenges the Marxist critique of that tradition from the grounds of
the specificity of politics as well.
From Garnham's critique,
three great virtues of Habermas's public sphere are mentioned. Firstly,
it focuses on the indissoluble like between the institutions and
practices of mass public communication and the institutions and
practices of democratic politics. The second virtue of Habermas's
approach concentrate on the necessary material resource base for ant
public. Its third virtue is to escape from the simple dichotomy of free
market versus state control that dominates so much thinking about media
policy.
Non-liberal theories
Oskar Negt & Alexander Kluge
took a non-liberal view of public spheres, and argued that Habermas'
reflections on the bourgeois public sphere should be supplemented with
reflections on the proletarian public spheres and the public spheres of production.
Proletarian
The
distinction between bourgeois and proletarian public spheres is not
mainly a distinction between classes. The proletarian public sphere is
rather to be conceived of as the "excluded", vague, unarticulated
impulses of resistance or resentment. The proletarian public sphere
carries the subjective feelings, the egocentric malaise with the common
public narrative, interests that are not socially valorized
"As extraeconomic interests, they exist—precisely in the
forbidden zones of fantasy beneath the surface of taboos—as stereotypes
of a proletarian context of living that is organized in a merely
rudimentary form."
The bourgeois and proletarian public spheres are mutually defining:
The proletarian public sphere carries the "left-overs" from the
bourgeois public sphere, while the bourgeois public is based upon the
productive forces of the underlying resentment:
"In this respect, they " [i.e. the proletarian public spheres] "
have two characteristics: in their defensive attitude toward society,
their conservatism, and their subcultural character, they are once again
mere objects; but they are, at the same time, the block of real life
that goes against the valorization interest. As long as capital is
dependent on living labor as a source of wealth, this element of the
proletarian context of living cannot be extinguished through
repression."
Production
Negt
and Kluge furthermore point out the necessity of considering a third
dimension of the public spheres: The public spheres of production. The
public spheres of production collect the impulses of resentment and
instrumentalizes them in the productive spheres. The public spheres of
production are wholly instrumental and have no critical impulse (unlike
the bourgeois and proletarian spheres). The interests that are
incorporated in the public sphere of production are given capitalist
shape, and questions of their legitimately are thus neutralized.
Biopolitical public
By
the end of the 20th century, the discussions about public spheres got a
new biopolitical twist. Traditionally the public spheres had been
contemplated as to how free agents transgress the private spheres. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have, drawing on the late Michel Foucault's writings on biopolitics, suggested that we reconsider the very distinction between public and private spheres.
They argue that the traditional distinction is founded on a certain
(capitalist) account of property that presupposes clear-cut separations
between interests. This account of property is (according to Hardt and
Negri) based upon a scarcity economy. The scarcity economy is
characterized by an impossibility of sharing the goods. If "agent A"
eats the bread, "agent B" cannot have it. The interests of agents are
thus, generally, clearly separated.
However, with the evolving shift in the economy towards an
informational materiality, in which value is based upon the
informational significance, or the narratives surrounding the products,
the clear-cut subjective separation is no longer obvious. Hardt and
Negri see the open source
approaches as examples of new ways of co-operation that illustrate how
economic value is not founded upon exclusive possession, but rather upon
collective potentialities. Informational materiality is characterized by gaining value only through being shared. Hardt and Negri thus suggest that the commons
become the focal point of analyses of public relations. The point being
that with this shift it becomes possible to analyse how the very
distinctions between the private and public are evolving.
.jpg)
