Savvy, Habermas 2.11.09

Before even reading this article I knew of theorist Habermas. Last year in my Communication Theory class we briefly touched upon Habermas and his idea of the "public sphere." Even when I read Habermas in the Theory class, I was still unsure of what Habermas was trying to exactly say to his readers. What I can remember from that class was how public sphere was referring to how the public sphere mediates between the "private sphere" and the "public authority". Habermas said the disappearance of the public sphere resulted from the influences of commercial mass media. As a result the people stopped questioning and thinking for themselves and turned into mass consumers.

Though I have read Habermas before, I still found this article to be a little hard to grasp. I felt that Habermas's thought process was scattered in this article. He gave many definitions for Modernism, yet I feel like he beat around the bush in defining the term. However, two quotes did stand out to me. The first would be the quote on page 98 that states the definition of modern as being, " a transition from the old to the new." I though that this was a very simplistic way of defining the term. In other reading that we have read in class the authors gave these complicated definitions that we would have to break down in order to see what the meaning was. I thought that Habermas did a great job in simplifying the term for his readers. From this quote I constantly thought about how our society transitions from the old to the new daily. Let's take a look back at something like the computer. Now it seems that everyone has a computer. Back when our parents were children it was rare to have a computer in the household, but now computers are a staple. Also lets take a look at how computers and the telephone has merged into one. Now you can call someone and access the web on your cell phone. Back when I was in middle school this was not a norm, but has become in today's society. Another quote that stuck out to me was on page 99, " Of course, whatever can survive time has always been considered to be a class." This made me think of songs, movies, and television series which our culture deems as classics. For example I Love Lucy is considered to be a classics, but when my grandparents were children it was a brand new series. I can remember watching the television series Saved By The Bell when I was in grammar school. Today's grammar school children consider it to be a classic. These are just examples of how we are constantly living in a modern society. It is what is considered to be modern that is what is changing.