Montana Marijuana Legalization Supporters- a public

For several years now, citizens all over the state of Montana have been banding together in support of the legalization or recreational marijuana use and cultivation. These citizens have found their way to one another and have formed a public around a shared value and are working to change "the public"'s perception of a controlled substance. They have written articles and bills, as well as campaigning all over the state to garner support for their movement, to the point that many citizens of Montana who don't even use Marijuana believe that it should be legal. They have created an internal discourse that has burgeoned into a sort of manifesto that is used to approach non-members of their public.

Warner- Publics and Counterpublics

Warner makes three different distinctions for the definition of "public" in his introduction. There is the public, or all of the people that have the cognitive ability to receive a particular message, as well as two distinctions of a public. One category is comprised of publics that arise around an idea- these are large, amorphous spheres that create their own discourse that is continuously being created and evolving. The other "a public" category refers to all  of the receptors of a particular piece of discourse. It is important to be able to distinguish between these three types of public before attempting to dive into Warner's work; he doesn't always make the distinction for you.

"A public is a space of discourse organized by nothing other than the discourse itself.... It exists by virtue of being addressed."-50
 Here, Warner places a great deal of emphasis on the discourse that gives birth to a public. He uses a series of questions to illustrate his meaning, one of which I would like to take up- "What would a public be if no one were addressing it?"-50  This opens up a whole bag of discourse options. Can a public exist without discourse? What would it look like? I think one way to think of a public that exists without being concretely addressed is a geographical community in which the members, should a topic of discourse arise, would be engaged in discussion as a public. Before the discourse arises, however, are the community members still considered a public? There is a sphere, but the members are not actively engaged in discourse, and so, there is organization without discourse. This is contrary to Warner's claim which I quoted above- this public (and I would consider it a public) is not organized by discourse but by geographic reality.
While Warner makes the claim that the discourse itself is the key to the organization of the public, he also acknowledges the converse idea, stating, "... a public is never just a congeries of people, never just the sum of persons who happen to exist. It must first of all have some way of organizing itself as a body and of being addressed in discourse."-51 This suggests that there is no concrete way to organize a public, that there is no real distinction of what bodies merit the term "public" and which don't.
"In the context of a public, however, strangers can be treated as already belonging to our world." -56
Warner explains that public discourse is among strangers, rather people that we do not personally know, but that are somewhat similar to us in demographic. This is essential to the notion that a public is accessible by anyone with the means to access it. They are not constrained by matters of connection.

Public Discourse Spheres

My thinker is a little jumbled this morning, so please excuse this disorganized compilation of my thoughts about the public sphere.


The invention of social media has both complicated and simplified Habermas's ideas and complicated them.
They are more complicated because there are a lot more variables in online content as well as burgeoning public circles that would have never existed if not for the social media arena in which they function. The lack of face-to-face interaction also serves to complicate analysis of Facebook as a public sphere because people tend to be a little more forthcoming with private information when shouting out to the public spheres to which they belong.
Habermas's ideas end up being easier to observe on social media. While some conversations are being blended in the private and public realms, other conversations are taking on a body and public sphere of there own. This is easy to observe when considering feminine rights associations like planned parenthood. They have recently been reaching out to women who have never contributed to their organization in order to ask about a relatively private matter, abortion, and publicizing it to an extent that they are making it easier and more comfortable as a topic of conversation for the public sphere.

If we sit back and take a moment to consider the nature of a public, I wonder, to how many distinct public circles do we belong? I myself can say that inside of social media and outside of it, I wouldn't be hard-pressed to think of ten or fifteen different conversations to which I feel that I have the membership qualifications to contribute my input.
To clarify, I feel perfectly inclusive and confident posting my views in an arena full of atheists, because this is a group to which I belong and I, through habitual practice, have appropriated that particular conversation into my character. Because I am a member of this public, I am capable of contribution. I would not feel as comfortable contributing to a conversation about mechanical engineering. This is simply a public circle of enthusiasts to which I do not belong as I have nothing meaningful to add to the conversation.

Our own personal blends of public spheres, the myriad of different conversations to which we our contributions are a viable addition to the topics at hand are continuously changing. As our lives change around us, our modes and arenas for discourse are altered with them. Soon, for example, we will all be graduating from college, and while for a time we will be able to contribute to conversations dealing with student affairs with relative familiarity, eventually that sense of belonging to the sphere of discourse surrounding what it is to be a student in today's more generalized public sphere of American society. As we leave behind some spheres, we will attain new ones to replace them. We will be joining communities that involve our work lives as well as communities as parents, husbands, wives, you name it.