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Bruce Robbins (Ed.), The Phantom Public Sphere. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1993; pp. xxvi + 310. Paper $21.00.
Communication scholars utilizing the conceptual framework associated with publics, the public sphere or with the dichotomy of the public/private will find Robbins' The Phantom Public Sphere of value. However, readers of Social Text, will find articles with which they are already familiar, since the book is a compilation of articles taken from that journal. Robbins' introductory essay discusses the history of the concept of the public sphere; in turn he considers Lippmann's The Phantom Public (1925), Dewey's, The Public and Its Problems (1927), and Habermas' Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962). Robbins asserts that the goal of the text is to sort out a concept whose baggage is so "hazy, idealized, and distant from the actual people, places and institutions around us that it can easily serve purposes that are anything but democratic" (p. xii). He states that the writers intend to resist the temptation to "ditch the public/private dichotomy, however pressing the temptation to do so." Rather, "they worry it, experiment with it, take it apart and recombine the pieces....