The public sphere without democracy: some recent work in LIS
| Published date | 23 September 2019 |
| Date | 23 September 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-06-2019-0115 |
| Pages | 769-783 |
| Author | John Buschman |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
The public sphere without
democracy: some recent
work in LIS
John Buschman
University Libraries, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to analyze and re-direct recent schematic and empirical scholarship
on Habermas’theory of the public sphere in library and information science (LIS).
Design/methodology/approach –This paper conducts a critical analysis of the relevant literature in light
of Habermas’origination and use/purpose of the public sphere concept.
Findings –The authors examined here produced a schematic operationalization of the public sphere that
thinned the concept, but in turn, that schematization has produced insight into the civil society functions and
communications of libraries, both within and without. For this work to be meaningful, the considerations and
contexts of democratic society must be reinserted.
Research limitations/implications –Further explorations of the relationship between the public sphere
and civil society as they are manifested around and in libraries is called for. Additionally, Weigand’s
approach to producing data/evidence on the public sphere and libraries should be furthered.
Practical implications –Understanding the role and function of libraries in democratic societies is
essential for libraries to play a productive democratic role in those societies and thus, in guiding them.
Social implications –This paper helps to situate the bewildering circumstances of libraries who face both
popular support and broad political-social questioning of their role and place.
Originality/value –This paper arguably int erjects a more sophisticated and nuance d theoretical picture
of the public sphere than p rior precis presented i n the LIS literature have un dertaken. It also enga ges a
unique set of empirica l-theoretical stud ents from another pers pective in order to de epen and shift that
research discourse.
Keywords Public sphere, Democracy, Operationalism, Law of the instrument
Paper type Conceptual paper
Introduction
Jürgen Habermas’(1989) concept of the public sphere has been enormously influential: “Few
books of the second half of the twentieth century have been so seriously discussed in so
many different fields and continue […] after its initial publication [in German] in 1962, to
generate such productive controversy and insight”(Kellner, 2000, p. 259). Indeed, recent
literature reviews of scholarship on the concept in library and information science (LIS)
demonstrate its continuing centrality. “It is no exaggeration to say that Habermas
‘discovered’the public sphere as a separate social domain –a discovery that ‘occupies the
same rank as a discovery in the natural sciences’” (Fraser in Wessler, 2018, p. 13). Other
relevant aspects of the concept will be presented later in this paper[1], but for purposes here
the public sphere can be understood as “the sphere of private people come together as a
public […] to engage [authorities] in a debate over the general rules governing relations”
(Habermas, 1989, p. 27). A recent spate of work in LIS produced by two authors applying
Habermas’(1989) concept of the public sphere to public libraries (Widdersheim, 2015, 2016,
2017, 2018; Widdersheim and Koizumi, 2015, 2016, 2017a, b; Koizumi and Widdersheim,
2016) is notable. This work has been singled out as the “most profound theoretical work on
public libraries and the public sphere that has been undertaken”in recent years (Audunson
et al., 2019, p. 778), so it merits some particular attention. The authors address what they call
“a fundamental problem […] of how public libraries negotiate public and private spheres of
life”(Widdersheim and Koizumi, 2017a, p. 24). Conceptually this requires for them
“appropriate research methods”consisting of “methodological frameworks and data
Received 15 June 2019
Revised 15 June 2019
27 July 2019
Accepted 8 August 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The public
sphere without
democracy
JournalofDocumentation
Vol.76 No. 3, 2020
pp.769-783
©EmeraldPublishingLimited
0022-0418
DOI10.1108/JD-06-2019-0115
769
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