ANALYSIS OF HABERMAS PUBLIC SPHERE The concept of public sphere and public opinion did not develop until

the eighteenth century when the distinction between opinion and public opinion was created. Public opinion differs from opinion (something that is taken for granted as part of a culture etc) in that it can only exist if there is a public that engages in a cogent discussion. Public sphere, according to Habermas (1991, 398) is a domain of our social life in which such a thing such as public opinion can be formed. In theory, the notion of public sphere is open to all citizens. When citizens are free to deal with matters of general interest without being under duress along with the guarantee that they may assemble and unite freely, and express and publicize their opinions freely, the citizens can be said to be acting as a public. The kind of communication that exists in a large public requires particular means of dissemination and influences. In the 21st century, the media of the public sphere include newspapers, radio, television and the internet particularly social media. A political sphere is one in which the public discussions involve objects associated with the practice of the state. In the liberal model of public sphere described by Habermas, society, by the modern constitution is guaranteed as a sphere of private autonomy contrasted by a public power constrained to a few functions. The public sphere in mass welfare-state democracies is characterized by an interconnection of the private and public domains where large -scale companies strive for political compromises with the state and with one another, behind closed doors if possible; but at the same time they have to secure at least plebiscitarian approval from the mass of the population through the deployment of a staged form of publicity (Habermas, 1991, 403). In other words, some form of

approval is required of the masses while political issues are rationalized between large-scale companies even as dealing with the state. In the contemporary society, it is possible to have a public sphere. Most contemporary societies are democratic in nature. This democracy allows citizens the freedom to form opinions and to assemble as and when they wish. Jhally (1989) states that to ensure democracy, there must be the existence at all times of a dynamic and diverse debate about social policy over a variety of subject areas. The First Amendment of the Constitution of America therefore guarantees freedom of belief, expression, and assembly. The following instances exemplify the existence of a public sphere in a contemporary society. Occupy Wall Street began on September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York Citys Wall Street financial district. According to its website, This was a protest initiated by the Canadian activist group Adbusters against social and economic inequality, high unemployment, corruption and undue influence of corporations on government particularly from the financial services sector. The protests ignited similar Occupy protests around the world in cities such as Sydney, Hong Kong, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and many others. Occupy Wall Street was proposed in a blog post from July 13, 2011 by Adbusters Media Foundation. The increasing popularity of social media such as social networking sites has made it possible for citizens to engage in rational discussions about social issues and assemble. The Middle East and North African (Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and beyond) uprisings were widely attributed to the significant role social media played. Other examples are the 2011 Wisconsin protests opposing the Wisconsin Budget Repair bill and the 2011 United States public employee protests which began in February 2011 against proposed legislation which would abate the power of labor unions.

There are some instances where public sphere may not exist in the contemporary world. According to Bagdikian (2004, 6) in their ambition to command market control in only one medium, most big media companies were geared into a new and more powerful goal, a small group of interlocked corporations that now have effective control over all the media on which the American public says it depends. In such a situation where the media is controlled by media conglomerates, they run what is fed to the public and this could hinder the development of public opinion as what is manufactured for the public might not highlight the real issues at hand. When the citizens do not have access to information that would stimulate the development of rational discussion, then the public sphere might not exist. Bagdikian (2004) argues that media conglomerates manufacture a social and political world and states the commercial mass media possess exceptional power over the knowledge and values of the country due to new technology. This power provides them with the ability to affect politics even more than they have in the past. The dominance of the contemporary media would more often than not lead to the proliferation of information or views that are held by those in control of the media. What citizens know is therefore dependent mostly on the media. In such a situation, the existence of a public sphere is unlikely. This can be related to what Jhally (1989) states as to the fact that other factors aside from government restrictions can prevent freedom of belief, expression, and assembly. Jhally (1989) also makes reference to the phrase coined by Hans Enzensberger Consciousness Industry to describe a media which endeavors to create a form of consciousness in the audience that is advantageous to the class that controls the media and industry in general. The creation of such a consciousness can hamper the existence of a public sphere in the contemporary society where the citizens are not aware of the real socio-political issues that affect their lives.

However, with new ever changing phases of new technology in the 21 st century, citizens have access to information not controlled by media giants. Information can be easily accessed by any citizen therefore negates some of the proliferation of information provided by the media giants in the political and social world. Citizens can therefore find information that can lead to the engagement in a rational discussion of social and political issues. A public sphere is possible in this instance.

References Bagdikian, B. H. 2004. Common Media for an Uncommon Nation. In The New Media Monopoly, 1-26. Boston: Beacon Press. Jhally, Sut. 1989. The Political Economy of Culture. In Cultural Politics in Contemporary America, edited by Ian Angus and Sut Jhally, 65-81. New York: Routledge. Habermas, Jrgen. 1991. The Public Sphere. In Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies, edited by Chandra Mukerji and Michael Schudson, 398-404. Berkeley: University of California Press. Occupy Wall Street. 2011. About. Accessed January 30. http://occupywallst.org/about/