Third Persona - Regarding The Public Sphere

Regarding The Public Sphere

See also: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

The public sphere, as defined by Jürgen Habermas, consists of a social public that disregards status, holds a domain of common concern, and is publicly inclusive. Recent critiques, primarily by feminists such as Nancy Fraser, argue that Habermas' theory consisted of "significant exclusions," that his bourgeois public sphere excluded women and other unseen classes of persons.

Such criticisms, which seek to acknowledge forgotten populations, are sympathetic with Wander's conception of third persona. Where Frazer, et al., deviate from Wander is their assessement that these marginalized groups then form their own sub-spheres, termed counterpublics. The theory of third persona recognizes that despite the forming of sub-spheres or counterpublics, there are still groups that will fall outside even these marginalized groups, what might be thought of, in Frazerian terms, as nonpublics.