Habermas and Oppositional Public Spheres: A Stereoscopic Analysis of Black and White Press Practices

Abstract

Drawing upon Jürgen Habermas's discourse‐based theoretical approach, this article argues that his thesis regarding the bourgeois public sphere needs to be redirected so as (1) to show how sources of communicative action may have dried up within the bourgeois public sphere and (2) to explore real emancipatory alternatives that spring up as oppositional voices of subaltern groups, oriented to understanding, and expressed in contexts wherein people's upward struggles against power and domination have not yet been completed. In support of the argument, a stereoscopic analysis is conducted that focuses on public sphere practices and counter‐practices – specifically those of The New York Times as exemplar participant of bourgeois publicness and the black‐owned and operated New York Amsterdam News as its oppositional counterpart.

The Habermasian Public Sphere and Exclusion: An Engagement with Poststructuralist-Influenced Critics

“…Such “illegitimate” exclusions result from: “unequal distribution of attention, competencies, and knowledge” (Habermas, , p. 325); strategic manipulation of various sorts, including bribes, threats, or violence (Habermas, , pp. 307–308); and systemic coercion—state and corporate interests and their instrumental media of money and power colonizing more and more areas of life including those that should, for a healthy democratic society, be coordinated by public opinion derived from rational‐critical deliberation (for an overview of the forms of distorted communication identified by Habermas, see Huspek, , pp. 827–830).…”

“…Habermasian interest in reducing “illegitimate” exclusion due to “distortions” in deliberative practice has encouraged the theorizing of the politics of exclusion with regards such practice (in contrast to exploring the politics of exclusion associated with the reconstruction of the deliberative public sphere norm). A range of Habermasian‐influenced theorists and sympathetic critics have explored how the politics of exclusion may be accounted for in terms of democracy and the public sphere, including theorizing the role of “nondeliberative” forms of communication in the contestation of deliberative boundaries (Asen, ; Benhabib, ; Brady, ; Dryzek, ; Fraser, ; Fung, ; Huspek, , ; Markell, ; Smith, ). More specifically, many of these theorists have addressed the politics of exclusion from deliberative practice by taking up “counterpublics” theory.…”

“…Habermas has himself discussed, partly in response to his critics, the politics of deliberative exclusion, how the exclusions defining the rules and contents of public sphere deliberation generate counter‐effects and associated counterpublics, which when supported by liberal rights can effectively contest such exclusion (1985a, 1992, 1996a). It is true that Habermas has not developed his thinking on counterpublics as far as have many of those developing his work or as is promised by some of his comments (Huspek, , pp. 822–825), and certainly not with respect to the aesthetic‐affective aspects of communication (see Squires, ).…”

Theorizing ICTs in the Arab World: Informational Capitalism and the Public Sphere

“…Nancy Fraser (1993) has explained well the implications of revisionist histories of the European experience which have demonstrated that the bourgeois public sphere was an exclusive domain which marginalized the voices of subordinate social groups regardless of its normative claims to be inclusive and cognizant of the communicative equality of all participants. Habermas accepted that the exclusionary practices of the bourgeois public sphere, in frustrating the very principle of open discussion which they purported to serve, constituted a degradation of the public sphere (Huspek 2007:821–43,). Nonetheless, he maintained that they represented a challenge to which marginalized groups were forced to respond, thereby creating the very discussion that was needed to enhance the political project.…”

Normative Potentials of Rhetorical Action Within Deliberative Democracies

“…These questions are prompted by neither a mainstream news‐consuming public nor practitioners at The New York Times but rather are informed by nearly 2 centuries of Black press news coverage and commentary in the United States that, on the one hand, has resonated deeply within African American communities but that, on the other hand, has been all too often ignored by White majorities. The questions emanate, that is, from a counterideology conveyed by an alternative press, written in a style that a majoritarian‐based political culture often considers “slangy” or “coarse,” that propounds truths grounded in the group‐subjective experiential knowledge of an oppressed people, and that challenges dominant ideology with attention‐getting means that are in fact often meant to offend the moral sensibilities of (dominant) groups (Huspek, 2004, 2007, in press). Yet, The New York Times has remained largely exempt from such critique because the newspaper’s standards have tended to advance an ideology that denies the legitimacy of oppositional Black voice and ensures against it being given a fair public hearing among the Times’s readership.…”