On Communicative Rationality with Passion

This paper reflects on the reception and application of Habermas' concept of the public sphere in media and communication studies at various points in recent history. It argues that it is urgent to focus the scholarly community's intellectual efforts not on decrying the utopian nature of the concept, but on salvaging and honing its normative edge. Its central philosophical kernel, rational-critical debate, and its connection to concepts such as communicative action, communicative rationality and deliberation developed in Habermas' later works, need to be re-examined and re-asserted as a vital criterion of democratic public communication. In defence of this argument, some of the most influential critiques of the public sphere model-its alleged neglect of emotions and conflict-are examined and challenged. The pathologies of the current space of mediatised public communication, it is argued, should be understood as symptoms of the erosion of communicative rationality and the ideal of the public sphere from the social imaginary.