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Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Review Quiz

Historical, Philosophical and Biographical Contexts

General Summary

Important Terms

Important Themes, Ideas and Arguments

Introduction

Social Structures of the Public Sphere

The Political Functions of the Public sphere

Bourgeois Public Sphere: Idea and Ideology

The Social-Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

The Transformation of the Public Sphere's Political Function

On The Concept of Public Opinion

Important Quotes

Key Facts

Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Jurgen Habermas

Review Quiz

Where do the categories of "public" and "private" originate, according to Habermas?

(A) Ancient Greece

(B) Ancient Egypt

(D) Ancient Mesopotamia

When did representative publicity exist?

(A) In the classical period

(B) In the Middle Ages

(D) In the nineteenth century

In the Middle ages, what or who was the only "public person"

(A) God

(B) Moses

(D) The King

Which two elements were important in forming a new social order at the end of the Middle Ages, according to Habermas?

(A) Economics and finance

(B) Representation and publicity

(D) Cakes and ale

What were the two most important things were traded from the Middle Ages onwards?

(A) News and commodities

(B) Sugar and spices

(D) Newspapers and periodicals

Which two elements made up the new public authority?

(A) King and parliament

(B) A permanent administration and a standing army

(D) Power and coercion

What was the corollary of state authority?

(A) Publicity

(B) Civil society

(D) The private realm

Whose concept of the "social" does Habermas quote?

(A) Walter Benjamin

(B) Hannah Arendt

(D) Martin Heidegger

Which two elements were polarized before the eighteenth century?

(A) Publicity and representation

(B) State and society

(D) Trade and government

What was the precursor of the bourgeois public sphere?

(A) The representative public sphere

(B) The governmental public sphere

(D) The literary public sphere

What were the two key institutions of the public sphere?

(A) Salons and coffee-houses

(B) Convents and monasteries

(D) Bars and alehouses

What was the site of representative publicity?

(A) The King's body

(B) The court

(D) The town

Which other important institution also consolidated itself in the eighteenth century?

(A) The court

(B) The conjugal family

(D) The domestic confraternity

What is Habermas's definition of the public sphere?

(A) "The sphere of private people come together as a public"

(B) "The public constituted from private citizens acting publically"

(D) "The public formed together from the private sphere"

What is another term for the family, according to Habermas?

(A) Domestic bliss

(B) The intimate sphere

(D) The domestic sphere

Where and when did a political public sphere first arise?

(A) In France in the fifteenth century

(B) In Scotland in the eighteenth century

(D) In Great Britain in the eighteenth century

Which authors does Habermas analyze as central to any understanding of the public sphere?

(A) Arendt, Adorno and Weber

(B) Schmitt, Koselleck and Benjamin

(D) Aristotle, Plato, Constant, d'Argenson and Montesquieu

Which economic policy was for Habermas associated with the "refeudalization" of society

(A) Neomercantilism

(B) Mercantilism

(D) Laissez-faire

Which synonym for neomercantilism does Habermas give?

(A) Neo-classicism

(B) Socialism

(D) Interventionism

In the modern period, what did the occupational sphere become?

(A) An independent, quasi-public realm

(B) An incoherent private sphere

(D) An oppressive constraint on social labor

What roles did the conjugal family lose at the same time?

(A) Its economic tasks and role as an agent of personal internalization

(B) Its status-forming role and domestic basis

(D) Its public role and task in shaping young minds

What does Habermas call the key modern transformation of the public?

(A) The rise of the social

(B) The transition from a culture-debating to a culture-consuming public

(D) The shift towards personalization

Why do modern debates differ from their eighteenth century predecessors?

(A) They are organized and isolated as an element of adult education

(B) They are more intense

(D) They always have an audience

What is the key principle of the modern mass media?

(A) Divide and conquer

(B) Condescension

(D) Integration

Which two elements interpenetrate in the modern world, according to Habermas?

(A) State and society

(B) Popular and public

(D) Media and culture

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