Koncepcja sfery publicznej Jürgena Habermasa

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the Habermas’ conception of public sphere developed in his book The Structural Transformation o f the Public Sphere. My basic goal is to provide introduction to Habermas early thought on the public sphere which could be understandable for those who are not initiated to his works. I explicate the Habermas’ concept of public sphere and its structural transformation. The analysis of Habermas theory is discussed in the historical context. Thus, part of the article is devoted to a history of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. While Habermas drew on some ideas of the Frankfurt School (for example, the concept of culture industry), he rejected the overt pessimism of his mentors and their disdain for the liberal democracy. Finally, I discuss some inadequacies of Habermas theory (e. g. the neglect of exclusionary character of bourgeois public sphere) and contrast his simplified model of audience reception with more nuanced model of decoding and encoding worked by Stuart Hall.