Post in Read any useful research lately, unanswered research questions

Jul 22 09:19 UTC

Ella wrote:
>
> Which parliament are you referring to?  I can't think of a period
> when the UK parliament has been the institutional embodiment of the
> public sphere. (Though at its best is may have aspired to
> be). Equally I can't think of a time when the Parliament did not
> largely represent the country's various authorities -whether due to
> the prevalence of wealthy landowners in both houses or those with
> religious power in the Lords.

(I hope I don't distort this, by summarizing it.)

This happened roughly two centuries ago.  Owing to certain rule
changes, the House of Commons was extending itself a little further
into society.  There it came into contact with the public sphere.  The
rule changes included a lifting of restrictions on the publication of
parliamentary proceedings.  These proceedings began to appear in the
press.

  The exclusion of the public from the parliamentary deliberations
  could no longer be maintained at a time in which "Memory" Woodfall
  was able to make the Morning Chronicle into the leading London daily
  paper because he could reproduce verbatim sixteen columns of
  parliamentary speeches without taking notes in the gallery of the
  House of Commons, which was prohibited.  A place for journalists in
  the gallery was officially provided by the Speaker only in the year
  1803; for almost a century they had to gain entry illegally.  But
  only in the House of Parliament newly constructed after the fire of
  1834 were stands for reporters installed - two years after the first
  Reform Bill had transformed Parliament, for a long time the target
  of critical comment by public opinion, into the very organ of this
  opinion.

  (Habermas. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.)

The newspapers at the time were unlike their modern counterparts.
They weren't so much the business of a publisher, and they weren't
under the tight control of an editor.  They were more like independent
blogs or mash-ups.  So it happened that the public opinion, in the
form of critical correspondence and commentary, came to be printed
alongside the Parliamentary deliberations.

The Reform Bill also extended the Commons by enlargement of the
franchise.  This brought a larger proportion of the middle class into
the electorate.  At the same time, nascent political parties had been
forming.  They were almost the opposite of modern parties - they were
a constellation of numerous small groups, without any central control
or discipline, and they tended to form around individual MPs,
candidates, or prominent people.  The members of these little parties
met frequently, discussed the latest news, and expressed their views.

So Parliament and the public sphere came together along these
channels.  At their intersection, they confronted the authorities of
the establishment - the landed aristrocracy, the merchant monopolies,
the King and his ministers.  It was not "anarchy" (as someone
suggested), but it wasn't business as usual either.  People were fired
up.  The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 was bitterly fought, for
example, and it hit the land owners and merchants hard.

> I'm not really too convinced by the public/mass dichotomy either.  I
> like the idea of public as it's set out here, but in practice...

It's true that Mills's polarization of "public" and "mass" is
something of an invention.  But I think it's a useful one.  It's like
the two lenses of a stereoscope - it provides a contrast of
perspectives.  If the tool is used properly, it can reveal features
that are otherwise hidden.  It won't work to focus it on the current
practice alone, for instance.  It needs a dimension of historical
change (then and now) as introduced in Habermas's study; or of
technical possibilities (this and that) as I have been trying to
describe (my punditry, as someone said).

Maybe this dichotomy can contribute to answering Steven's question
too.  I doubt that e-democracy is going to uphold the status quo -
it's almost certain to bring changes.  So maybe the best way to avoid
the fate of becoming "e-waste" is to view the alternatives with a
critical eye.

> ... some people prefer to express their opinions (regardless of
> quality) and some prefer to keep their own council or only talk to
> one or 2 people in private.  I think that's human nature.  I think
> we should design systems to be useful to both types of people.
> Otherwise we are trying to change people to fit the system (which
> represents our idea of how they should behave).

I agree.  Your points apply especially to the design of the human
interfaces.  The public sphere is necessarily a "public of private
people", a place where the two come to meet.  The historical context
is interesting, because the author situates the original institution
of the public sphere, not in Parliament, but in the salons of the
middle-class families.  It was there that the private and the public
came to meet.