Public sphere and public opinion

Abstract

"Public opinion" speaks a lot and gives a lot to talk about. However, the "subject" that speaks here is difficult to specify. What or who is public opinion? Is it a collective subject or many subjects talking behind a common mask? How was the concept of public opinion constructed? Who can speak on behalf of public opinion? Conduct it, deceive it, instrumentalize it? To address these questions, we will follow the study by J. Habermas: History and criticism of public opinion (The structural transformation of public life). Under this guide I will make: (1) a tight synthesis of the Habermasian reconstruction of the historical process in which the bourgeois public space is constructed (opens), (2) I will approach the emergence of the written press and the passage of literary public opinion to the political public opinion, (3) in third place I will review the historical step of the reading public to the consuming public of culture, (4) finally, present some later reflections of the author, in his work Theory of communicative action (1982).