Before I go into explaining what the public sphere theory is, it is best to know about democracy first.
There are multiple different types of democracy. The earliest form of democracy is called 'Direct Democracy' which was used a very long time ago by the ancient Greeks, however it has mainly died out now except for the use of it in Switzerland. It is the most plain and simple form of decision making. This is because things would get decided by a huge group of people getting together and figuring things out. Evidently this quickly died out because it is simply impossible to get everyone together- even in a tiny country like the UK.
There is then representative democracy, which we use here in the UK. It is also used by the germans, americans and australians to name but a few. Representative democracy works by people electing a representative to make decisions for them (this is where the voting in politics comes in). Although it seems like a good idea, it isn't always.
So the public sphere?
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| Jurgen Habermas |
The public sphere was the theory of Jurgen Habermas who was a philosopher and sociologist. He explains that a public sphere is a certain group of people who get together in order to create the "public". This could be all the people who watch The Only Way Is Essex. Although, back in the day when it was the 18th century, the public sphere would have been made up of people who were very well educated or had a lot of money.
Jurgen Habermas argues that this is the best way to sort out democracy. It allows if not all, but some, of the public to represent a country when making decisions, rather then the one representative who doesn't always get it right.
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