“Ideology and simultaneously more than mere ideology”: On Habermas’ reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere

As someone who works interdisciplinarily between media and communication studies and sociology with an overall interest in critical social theory, Habermas’ “most successful” (Habermas, 2022a, p. 145) book is important in at least three respects: He develops a normative, critical concept of the public sphere and the formation of public opinion, which aims at democratizing domination, that is ties it to a process of unrestricted discussion of questions of general interest involving all those affected. The development of this possibility, but also the transformation and disintegration of the public sphere, is sociologically embedded, that is, considered in the light of changing socio-spatial frames of reference, mediatization, and political-economic developments (cf. Seeliger & Sevignani, 2022). Habermas, like few in critical social theory, is concerned with the organization and political economy of the media.1 It was therefore a great honor that he not only contributed a commentary to texts edited by Martin Seeliger and me (first in German: Habermas, 2021, then also in English: Habermas, 2022a), but even wrote an independent text, which is now also available as a book together with smaller texts (Habermas, 2022b).