According to the “classical” definition of Habermas, the public sphere - is a phenomenon of modern bourgeois society ( and “the public”, initially – members of bourgeois salons, who were able to discuss social and political events and then publish their views in papers and magazines) [Habermas 1962, 1973]. It is important to notice, that this vision of “public sphere”, that was formulated in the middle of 20-th century, observing “the public of 19-th century”. By the end 20-th century public space and the public itself had changed dramatically – together with the changes in society from “modernity” to post-modernism, driven by mass media and dominated by mass culture, where TV is changing the “responsible public” into the “target audience”.
Recent works of Habermas [Habermas 1997: 105-108; originally published 1989; Habermas 2008] that are cited less frequently, he is speaking about “privatizing” of the “public sphere”, and then – about “re-feudalization” of certain public spaces, that are “dominated by the new “land-lords” of the previously “public” domains.
Surprisingly enough, electronic media, that were supposed to connect people and provide more broad public space, are often working to devide and manipulate – in the interests of their owners, - so the public sphere is split in pieces, and , in fact, shrinking. TV and media deprives people from the need to think on their own, most of the “opinions” are prepared by the editors and speech-writers, the commentators talk about “what is really going on”, and “community leaders” are repeating the opinion, that they had heard on TV. Civil society learnes about itself from papers and TV-shows, so the public self-identity is formed by the “TV-mirror”. Thus, “the public” as an independent social actor is lost.
However, the need for publicity and public debate does not disappear. It moved to the level of each individual political body (national Parliaments, political parties, social activist groups) or rounds around specific problem. So, for each public problem, or public policy actor, or under both, its own public is being created.
. Information society with new opportunities of forming and manipulating public opinion in its development and movement toward a postmodern also have other trends – new feudalism or re -feudalization, to a new “synthesis” of private and public spheres, where the new feudal lords, create “the public” ( or “their” public) within their private domains, including the privately owned company, or in specific territorial location, or with relation to specific problem (so-called. territorial and / or problematic binding) using personal relationships as well as information technologies.
What we currently observe – is an on-going construction of multiple public spaces, which may often overlap, but, nevertheless, exist in “mosaic” format, correlating with postmodern logic of increased heterogeneity of complex systems, like today''s state and society.
In contemporary society we notice the trend of “new feudalism” (re-feudalization of public space), which, according to Habermas, can perform a positive function, because it helps improve the quality of public and political governance, opposes to the trend of massivization. If public authorities are interested in solving particular social problems, they must create the public and publicity, designing public spaces, especially where it is claimed by the interests of stakeholders, individuals interested in resolving this problem. At the same time we must not forget that Habermas points directly [Habermas 1997: 105-108], that in his research and generalizations he only means societies of the modern bourgeois democracies – and, furthermore, he works with countries that already established the functioning “welfare state”, i.e. “social state”, which largely takes care of the social needs of citizens and have possibility to provide them adequately. This simply means, that those assumptions of “positive function of re-feudalization” in non-democratic countries might not be true, but, in fact, cause a lot of troubles, increasing manipulation of public opinion – both on the level of mass culture – and in “privately-owned domains”.
Using examples from Russian Federation and other post-soviet states, the paper seeks to provide illustration to conceptual connection and divergence between notions of
“the public”, “civil society” and “community”. This, in its tern, allows to shed some light on the most troubling problem of post-modernity: how to transform “the public” from the “target audience” into a responsible social actor.
