Online Postings

Online Postings

Public communication, advertising, and public relations have an important role to play in the society. Crossley and Roberts (2004) critiques Habermas by bringing fresh ideas and perspectives with regards to the public sphere. For instance, the article reflects on the modern social events and processes like the emergence of the internet and anti-corporate protests. The collection of essays in this article contemplates contributions of the work of Habermas towards the contemporary social theory. In fact, Habermas’ school of thought is applied in most of the essays, especially the scholar’s conception of rational, idealized speech and the end of golden age because of mass media.

Bentele and Nothhaft (2010), on the other hand, argue that the treatment of public sphere at a face value is ill-informed because even the people from European countries such as UK, Italy, or Germany are not in consensus on what is classifiable as public or as private. As a result, future scholars on the subject should refer to historic perspectives on public sphere to settle the raging debate. The article claims that in the public sphere, the truth is revealed to all, even to persons vying for acclamation. For citizens to communicate strategically in the public sphere, they ought to clarify that their interests marry with public opinions. The authors also argue that theoretical discussions on public discourse and the interests of the public sphere are often colonized, undermined, bought and disregarded.  The practicality of this argument is age-old because there is no neat formula to form a democratic and unspoiled public sphere (Fraser, 2012). In light of this, Bentele and Nothhaft (2010) propose extensive research to be conducted to determine how public communication results in a societal change given that it is increasingly becoming self-referential.

In her article, Taylor (2010) is convinced that the questions on social roles on public relations should be answered by employing meta-analytical concepts that can trace historic practices on public relations. For example, in the past, kings and political leaders used several tactics to communicate with the subjects. Therefore, scholars should inquire about the relationship between public relations and advertising, measurement of media placements, and setting of agendas. The role of public relations is to create and disseminate information to aid an organization in the accomplishment of its goals. However, critics strongly object the aspect of public relations on civil societies because most of them conceive public discourse based on imperialist ideas. In essence, public relations recreate the ideal condition for the enactment of a modern civil society (Calhoun, 2011).

Bibliography

Taylor, M., 2010. Public relations in the enactment of civil society. The SAGE handbook of public relations, pp.5-16.

Bentele, G. and Nothhaft, H., 2010. Strategic Communication and the Public Sphere from a European Perspective. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 4(2), pp.93-116.

Crossley, N. and Roberts, J.M., 2004. After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere. Sociological Review Monograph.

Calhoun, C., 2011. Civil Society and the Public Sphere (pp. 311-323). London: Oxford University Press.

Fraser, N., 1990. Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy. Social Text, (25/26), pp.56-80.