This open access book provides the first systematic analysis of the role of the media in the rise of illiberalism, based on an original theoretical framework and extensive empirical research in Eastern Europe – a region that serves as a key battleground in the global advance of illiberalism. Liberal democracies across the world are facing a range of challenges, from the growing influence of illiberal leaders and parties to deepening polarization and declining trust in political elites and mainstream media. Although these developments attracted significant scholarly attention, the factors that contribute to the spreading of illiberalism remain poorly understood, and the communication perspective on illiberalism is particularly underdeveloped. Štětka and Mihelj address this gap by introducing the concept of the illiberal public sphere, identifying the key stages in its development, and explaining what makes illiberalism distinct from related phenomena such as populism. Their analysis reveals how and why the changing communication environment facilitates selective exposure to ideologically and politically homogeneous sources, fosters changes in normative assumptions that guide media trust, increases vulnerability to disinformation, and goes hand in hand with growing hostility to immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. The findings challenge widespread assumptions about digital platforms as key channels of illiberalism and suggest that their role shifts as the illiberal sphere progresses. The arguments presented in this book have important implications for future research on challenges to liberal democracy, as well as for journalists, media regulators and other professionals committed to rebuilding media trust and containing the forces of polarization.

This major work retraces the emergence and development of the Bourgeois public sphere - that is, a sphere which was distinct from the state and in which citizens could discuss issues of general interest. In analysing the historical transformations of this sphere, Habermas recovers a concept which is of crucial significance for current debates in social and political theory. Habermas focuses on the liberal notion of the bourgeois public sphere as it emerged in Europe in the early modern period. He examines both the writings of political theorists, including Marx, Mill and de Tocqueville, and the specific institutions and social forms in which the public sphere was realized. This brilliant and influential work has been widely recognized for many years as a classic of contemporary social and political thought, of interest to students and scholars throughout the social sciences and humanities.

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: A-80, University of Canterbury (Department of Mass Communication and Journalism), course: Political Economy of Communication, language: English, abstract: The role of the media in democracies is to connect decision makers and voters. The media should thus fulfil a basic position and serve as a foundation for the democratic process. In Rich Media, Poor Democracy R.W. McChesney argues that the media, far from providing a bedrock for freedom and democracy, have become a significant antidemocratic force in the United States and, to varying degrees, worldwide. The variables that have caused this development are the corporate media explosion and the corresponding implosion of public life and culture. M.C. Miller (2001) even states that “the generated monoculture, endlessly and noisily triumphant, offers, by and large, a lot of nothing, whether packaged as ‘the news’ or ‘entertainment’”. Whereas the major beneficiaries are wealthy investors, advertisers and the few leading media conglomerates, this concentrated corporate control is disastrous for any notion of participatory democracy. The text contrasts the two fundamentally different positions of the media’s role in democracy, which are the media in the desirable position as provider of a public sphere in a Habermasian sense, and the media’s role in a liberal theory understanding. By focussing largely on the US media, the prototype of privatization, section two names the most influential corporate powers and presents the influence they exert. Following the description of their independence from any controlling instances, such as the FCC, the text finally points out alternatives which are basically derived from D.W. Mazzocco.

In this book, scholars from a wide range of disciplines respond to Habermas's most directly relevant work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. The relationship between civil society and public life is in the forefront of contemporary discussion. No single scholarly voice informs this discussion more than that of Jürgen Habermas. His contributions have shaped the nature of debates over critical theory, feminism, cultural studies, and democratic politics. In this book, scholars from a wide range of disciplines respond to Habermas's most directly relevant work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. From political theory to cultural criticism, from ethics to gender studies, from history to media studies, these essays challenge, refine, and extend our understanding of the social foundations and changing character of democracy and public discourse. Contributors Hannah Arendt, Keith Baker, Seyla Benhabib, Harry C. Boyte, Craig Calhoun, Geoff Eley, Nancy Fraser, Nicholas Garnham, Jürgen Habermas, Peter Hohendahl, Lloyd Kramer, Benjamin Lee, Thomas McCarthy, Moishe Postone, Mary P. Ryan, Michael Schudson, Michael Warner, David Zaret

This book is a critique of the public sphere, both as the centrepiece of some liberal theory about political communications, and as a description of actually existing media practice in Ireland and beyond - in traditional commercial news media and in social media. Written in an accessible style, but with endnotes as necessary, it is a call to more and deeper critical thinking about media, old and new, as well as a consideration of the communicative needs of a present and future movement for transformative political and economic change. The book introduces the public sphere as an historic idea and ideal, a place where democratic subjects deliberate and ensure civil society has a voice at the table of state. It challenges that idea, both in terms of its limitations in a globalised economy and its ultimately technocratic-consensual model of politics, its evasion of what Laclau and Mouffe call 'the ineradicability of antagonism'. It also begins a political-economy critique of the media, the presumed home of the public sphere in the post-18th-century-coffeehouse era. What we can and can't learn by looking at media behaviour through the lens of its proprietors' commercial interests is discussed. The biases of broadcasters and newspapers in the recent economic crisis are considered, along with the pressures and consequences of declining print circulation and migration of advertising online, as well as some initial questions about pluralism and the continuing important role of the public service media, in Ireland and elsewhere. This chapter includes an extensive review of previously unpublished results of a study into newspaper coverage of the Irish movement against the Iraq war. Public Sphere also moves the discussion online, where, though nearly infinite pluralism appears to rule the day, power and freedom are more elusive. Under the regime of 'communicative capitalism', we are all 'content providers', generally without remuneration. The continuing centrality of advertising and corporate power in digital media underlines the need to keep our eyes on the money even when talking about a networked information environment. The familiar question of whether online engagement acts as a substitute for 'real world' politics is supplemented, in this chapter, with an examination of the 'real' content of virtual politics, and of whether we can explain some of the weirdest recent turns in the global political journey in light of special features of the online world, such as the 'fake news' that is widely supposed to have elected Donald Trump. Finally, we look at media alternatives, if any, to the corporate control of potentially transformative communications. Although I regard the concept of the public sphere as hopelessly inadequate at best, I do, in keeping with the theme of the Sireacht series, seek to imagine a healthier environment for public communication in the context of a better Ireland and a better world.

The public sphere, be it the Greek agora or the New York Times op-ed page, is the realm of appearances - not citizenship. Its central event is spectacle - not dialogue. Public dialogue, the mantra of many intellectuals and political commentators, is but a contradiction in terms. Marked by an asymmetry between the few who act and the many who watch, the public sphere can undermine liberal democracy, law, and morality. Inauthenticity, superficiality, and objectification are the very essence of the public sphere. But the public sphere also liberates us from the bondages of private life and fosters an existentially vital aesthetic experience. Reign of Appearances uses a variety of cases to reveal the logic of the public sphere, including homosexuality in Victorian England, the 2008 crash, antisemitism in Europe, confidence in American presidents, communications in social media, special prosecutor investigations, the visibility of African-Americans, violence during the French Revolution, the Islamic veil, and contemporary sexual politics. This unconventional account of the public sphere is critical reading for anyone who wants to understand the effects of visibility in urban life, politics, and the media.