“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

Abstract

As someone who works interdisciplinarily between media and communication studies and sociology with an overall interest in critical social theory, Habermas' "most successful" (Habermas, 2022a, p. 145) book is important in at least three respects: He develops a normative, critical concept of the public sphere and the formation of public opinion, which aims at democratizing domination, that is ties it to a process of unrestricted discussion of questions of general interest involving all those affected. The development of this possibility, but also the transformation and disintegration of the public sphere, is sociologically embedded, that is, considered in the light of changing socio-spatial frames of reference, mediatization, and political-economic developments (cf. Seeliger & Sevignani, 2022). Habermas, like few in critical social theory, is concerned with the organization and political economy of the media. 1 It was therefore a great honor that he not only contributed a commentary to texts edited by Martin Seeliger and me (first in German: Habermas, 2021, then also in English: Habermas, 2022a), but even wrote an independent text, which is now also available as a book together with smaller texts (Habermas, 2022b).Against this background, I was very pleased to be invited to participate in this symposium on his new book. In this contribution, I will first, according to Habermas, briefly sketch the role of the public sphere in liberal-representative political systems and its transformation during the rise of digital communication. Then, I will point to a notable tension, immanent to Habermas new reflections, between, on the one hand, the normative goal of communicative learning and development and, on the other hand, his affirmation of "editorial tutelage." This tension, I think, presses to repose the question of ideology again that Habermas has removed from and at best locates outside the public sphere. By making the gate-keeper paradigm of mass-media communication as a yardstick to evaluate the ongoing transformations, Habermas tends to misjudge the quality of digital semi-public spheres. Not the lack of generalization, I argue finally, but a different, emancipatory, form of generalization is the core problem of public opinion formation. HABERMAS' OLD AND NEW REFLECTIONS ON THE PUBLIC SPHEREIn his new reflections, Habermas recapitulates-in a concise but accessible form-his approach to critical theory as reconstructive critique (1), his "sociological translation" (Habermas, 1996, p. 315) of the political public sphere (2), and 84