Definitions and Considerations

Prior to reading the texts for our Public Rhetoric & Writing class, I thought that “public” meant the people you’d interact with outside your familial arrangement and/or living space—that is, that location and relational familiarity dictated the bounds of public and private. However, I’ve come to realize that “public” is a much more complex concept.

In his “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964),” Habermas outlines the/a public as

1. Reasoned and well-informed citizens (50)
2. Who freely gather together, without recrimination from state (49)
3. To discuss matters of general interest (49)
4. Which could potentially challenge the state and determine political policies and decisions (49-50)

The authors of Rhetoric in Civic Life note that essential to Habermas's definition of public sphere is communication; the public sphere isn't defined merely by "a particular group of people, a location, or a set of topics" (238). Because communication intrinsically involves rhetoric, I decided to think about the public sphere in terms of the rhetorical situation model.

*Note: I realize that my graphic violates the “don’t use the word in your definition of the word” taboo; under the “Rhetors/Audience” section I have strong and/or weak public. However, as Nancy Fraser makes clear, a “public” isn’t created in a vacuum; rather, we can observe in democratic societies a multiplicity of publics, many of which are in conversation with the others.

Usually we construct something from the inside to the outside, but think of this graphic as being constructed from the outward-in; the outer parts must be established before the inner parts could become fully realized. Rhetors come up in response to an exigence (Palczewski et al. 261), and at least in the case of publics, the constraints determine who gets to be a rhetor or not.

You’re probably wondering why the word “power” is slapped clear across the graphic. Palczewski et al. sum it up well: “As with all communication, power plays a role” (237). If all (or most of) the power in the government is relinquished to one source, as in a monarchy, then publics (as we think of them) cannot form because people don’t have the freedom to assemble—much less have the authority to do anything about what they discuss or to “make political decisions subject to appeal” (Habermas 55).

“What counts as a general issue can change over time” (Palczewski et al. 240), but who decides what counts as a general issue? Who determines the validity of counterpublics? A public is composed of “informed individuals”—but of course, to the dominant public, the counterpublic may seem unreasonable. The possible answer to these questions: the people with power. But how do these people come to power? I think by discourse; Fraser describes how finding new language gave the women’s rights movement recognition and acceptance in some public spheres (67).

So power plays a role in establishing discourse—but discourse may also play a role in who gains power. Though power is not explicitly mentioned as a factor in Habermas’s definition of the public sphere, I think it is an “invisible” aspect worth further investigation.