The structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry into a category of bourgeois society

TLDR

The bourgeois public sphere, historically rooted in the interplay of politics, morality, and private autonomy, has evolved from a culture‑debating space to a culture‑consuming one, with its institutions and functions shaped by European liberal traditions and the rise of mass media. The study investigates how the bourgeois public sphere is socially transforming, with public and private spheres increasingly infiltrating each other and shifting from a culture‑debating to a culture‑consuming orientation, thereby contributing to its disintegration. The authors analyze the shift in the public sphere’s political function from literary journalism to mass‑media consumer services, viewing it as a platform for advertising and manufactured publicity that influences voting behavior and transforms the liberal constitutional state into a social‑welfare state. They find that the public sphere’s political role has been reshaped into a consumer‑oriented advertising platform, altering voting behavior and contributing to the transition from a liberal constitutional state to a.

Abstract

Part 1 Introduction - preliminary demarcation of a type of Bourgeois Public Sphere: the initial question remarks on the type representative publicness on the genesis of the Bourgois Public Sphere. Part 2 Social structures of the Public Sphere: the basic blueprint institutions of the public sphere the Bourgois family and the institutionalization of a privateness oriented to an audience the public sphere in the world of letters in relation to the public sphere in the political realm. Part 3 Political functions of the public sphere: the model case of British development the continental variants civil society as the sphere of private autonomy: private law and a liberalized market the contradictory institutionalization of the public sphere in the Bourgeois constitutional state. Part 4 The bourgeois public sphere - idea and ideology: publicity as the bridging principle between politics and morality, Kant on the dialectic of the public sphere, Hegel and Marx the ambivalent view of the public sphere in the theory of liberalism, John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville. Part 5 The social-structural transformation of the public sphere: the tendency toward a mutual infiltration of public and private spheres the polarization of the social sphere and the intimate sphere from a culture-debating (kulturrasonierend) public to a culture-consuming public the blurred blueprint - developmental pathways in the disintegration of the bourgeois public sphere. Part 6 the transformation of the public sphere's political function: from the journalism of private men of letters to the public consumer services of the mass media - the public sphere as a platform for advertising the transmitted function of the principle of publicity manufactured publicity and nonpublic opinions - the voting behaviour of the population the political public sphere and the transformation of the liberal constitutional state into a social-welfare state. Part 7 On the concept of public opinion: public opinion as a fiction of constitutional law-and the social-psychological liquidation of the concept a sociological attempt at clarification.