Counterpublics and Structural Change in Media and Politics: A Theoretical Framework on Transformations Within a Long-Term Historical Perspective

Abstract

The paper contributes to current debates on counterpublics and the applicability of the concept to various ideological contexts with a long-term historical perspective on structural changes in media and politics. It analyses problems of theory formation, offers an alternative approach and places current upheavals in the context of previous changes. Based on a literature review of current research in view of the increasing importance of right-wing actors’ online communication, a shift in theory is identified. On the one hand, theories of hegemony are expanded to describe alleged exclusions and, on the other hand, by emphasising the discursive construction of counterpublics, actors’ claims and perceptions are adopted as analytical criteria. As an alternative to approaches that focus on discursive construction of actual or alleged exclusions, this conceptual article presents a definition of counterpublics as opposed to structures of (hybrid) media systems and offers a framework to examine ideas and practices of counterpublics derived from classical approaches of counterpublics and adaptations based on findings of communication and media research. A sketch of transformations in communication history in the US and Europe from press under feudal rule to diversifications in hybrid media systems in liberal democracies is used to illustrate the framework.

KEYWORDS:

• public sphere
• counterpublics
• critical theory
• political economy
• media history
• media and social change

Introduction

With the advent of the Internet, new opportunities for participatory and emancipatory public communication, activism, and protest have emerged. At the same time, right-wing to far-right actors based their political success not least on online communication (Pfetsch 2018). These transformations in media and politics in recent years have reinforced scholarly interest in conceptualisations of public dissent, including so-called “counterpublics.” Concepts of counterpublics, long established for analysing the oppositional media of new social movements since the 1960s (Calhoun 2010, 307), are used as a heuristic for studying online communication in hybrid media systems characterised by political diversification or fragmentation (e.g. recently Lien 2024).

Generally, scholars of counterpublics argue that it is more appropriate, both historically and ideationally, to conceptualise the public sphere as a multiplicity of publics rather than a single unified arena. Following a critical approach, the relationship between these different partial publics reflects social inequalities with dominant partial publics constituting a hegemonic public at large (Fraser 1990, 68; Jackson and Kreiss 2023, 103–105). In contrast to dominant publics, according to the most influential definition provided by Nancy Fraser (1990, 67), “subaltern counterpublics” are “parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs.” Typically, so-called alternative media in opposition to mainstream media are regarded as constituents of counterpublics. Similar to previously movement-owned newspapers and magazines, flyers, or radio broadcasts (Atton 2002; Bailey, Cammaerts, and Carpentier 2008), actors’ weblogs, podcasts, or social media channels are analysed as newer alternative media in contrast to established digital or traditional media outlets (Leung and Lee 2014; Schwarzenegger 2021).

With the rise of the Internet and social media, as well as the growing importance of far-right online communication, the focus of research has partly shifted from (radical) democratic and progressive to anti-democratic counterpublics formed by nationalist, racist, or anti-Semitic actors such as the supporters of European far-right political parties Alternative for Germany or Sweden Democrats (Freudenthaler 2020; Holt 2018), the fascist Stormfront forum or Generation Identity (Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019), Evangelical Christians or Trump supporters (Reijven et al. 2020; Thimsen 2017). In view of this change in media and politics, scholars put theoretical emphasis on discursive practices that constitute counterpublics as well as on actors’ perceptions of exclusion and marginalisation (Freudenthaler 2020, 248–251).

However, the great advantage of the concept of counterpublics—providing explanatory potential for public articulation of dissent in its social setting—is threatened to be lost in this actor-centred perspective. This is due to the fact that the linking of the analysis of the articulation of public dissent to larger contexts of the public sphere and society as a whole is left aside. Recent classifications of (right-wing) counterpublics partly lack a definition of power and hegemony not least with respect to the dimension of media structures, which are decisively influenced by political economy. On the one hand, this entails theoretical problems for communication research, since phenomena of public dissent tend to be described at the micro level rather than analysed in their social context. On the other hand, normative and sociopolitical implications are associated with this, since claims of right-wing extremist actors are partly accepted as terms of analysis and thus legitimised.

Against this backdrop, this conceptual article argues for further theoretical development by adopting a long-term historical perspective on counterpublics and structural change in media and politics. Therefore, the argument follows the call for a widely neglected historical analysis of the structural transformation of counterpublics (Dolber 2011) in the vein of Jürgen Habermas’ (1991) public-sphere theory and the critical continuation of the philosopher’s influential work (Fraser 1990; Negt and Kluge 1993). A long-term historical perspective and a focus on underlying structures that enable and constrain actors’ practices place counterpublics in their broader societal contexts. It allows for a more precise determination of counterpublics and their relationship to the public at large. This relationship to structures offers a clear criterion for identifying counterpublics in view of media and political change. Grounded in this way, the concept of counterpublics is an important macro-concept for explaining changes in public communication and interdependencies within societal transformations as it is not limited to contents but also comprises the analysis of social structures and actors’ positions within these structures.

This article takes the form of a conceptual essay with a synthesis of the literature and a theoretical overview (Reese 2023) that explicates an approach to defining counterpublics in opposition to the dominant structures of (hybrid) media systems. To this end, the paper is structured as follows. First, a literature review describes the benefits of counterpublic concepts and contrasts it with the limits of the theoretical approaches that current research on online counterpublics has identified. Second, a historical and structural approach to counterpublics is presented, drawing on the historical and materialist strand of research. From these assumptions, we derive a definition and a framework for the study of counterpublics in the context of change in media and politics. Third, the framework is linked to findings from research in communication history and exemplified with regard to transformations in Europe and the US from press under feudal rule to diversifications in (hybrid) media systems in liberal democracies. Lastly, the conclusions of this historical and structural approach for (counter)publics are discussed.

Current Research on Counterpublics: Benefits and Limits of Theoretical Approaches

In the section that follows it will be argued that a shift in theory to the discursive construction and perception of counterpublics rather than the status or ideology of actors jeopardises the materialist core of the concept of counterpublics and thus its explanatory potential.

Although counterpublics still exist offline (see, for instance, Lee 2013, on migrant workers’ television), current research on counterpublics has largely focused on online communication. Recent research includes two main strands that reveal both the benefits and limits of theoretical approaches of counterpublics. In the first strand, researchers empirically consider partial publics with a progressive stance as counterpublics. In theoretical terms, these scholarly works conceptualise the opposition of such partial publics to the hegemonic public at large. In part, theorists emphasise the discursive and processual character of the formation of counterpublics (Asen 2000, 427; Warner 2002, 86–87). In the second strand, researchers extend the concept of counterpublics in both empirical and theoretical terms to partial publics with a right-wing orientation. For this purpose, theorists tie on concepts of discursive formations and furthermore place emphasis on actors’ perceptions of counterpublics, regardless of their goals and world views or social status. Linked to this is an expansion of the understanding of hegemony, which detaches the concept from social power relations.

Research on Progressive Counterpublics and Theoretical Foundations

Researchers on progressive counterpublics have analysed the emergence of the participatory formats and emancipatory partial publics that actors form around often intertwined topics, such as radical left-wing politics (Milioni 2009), suffrage and democratisation (Leung and Lee 2014), anti-racism (Foucault Welles and Jackson 2019; Jackson and Foucault Welles 2015), migration (Eckert and Chadha 2013), and feminism and women’s rights (Jackson and Banaszczyk 2016; Jackson, Bailey, and Foucault Welles 2020).

Theoretically, research on democratic partial publics builds on the tradition of critical approaches and, in particular, refers to Nancy Fraser (1990) and other scholars’ attempts to expand her concept, especially those by Catherine R. Squires (2002) and Michael Warner (2002), as will be explained in the following paragraphs. Key aspects of Fraser’s (1990) concept that have been highlighted by subsequent research are, first, her assumption of hegemony; second, the conception of a dual function of counterpublics, internally and externally; and third, emphasis on the discursive construction of counterpublics. Generally, new forms of online communication are seen as having the potential to create participatory and emancipatory counterpublics as opposed to a public that is understood as hegemonic (Downey and Fenton 2003, 196).

According to Fraser (1990, 68), counterpublics are defined by a twofold function “as spaces of withdrawal” and “as bases […] for agitational activities directed toward wider publics.” Squires (2002) elaborated on this by differentiating three forms of publics constituted by marginalised groups in opposition to dominant publics: enclaves, counterpublics in a narrower sense, and satellite publics. Partly, current research on progressive counterpublics reflects on these functions toward the public at large by analysing both structural inequalities regarding different dimensions of power such as economics, racial orders, or gender relations and their manifestation in media representation, as well as discursive practices countering dominant narratives (Jackson, Bailey, and Welles 2020). In this context, works on progressive counterpublics typically refer to historically marginalised groups as constituents of counterpublics in opposition to dominant publics. Some scholars explicitly reflect the role of Blacks, workers, or minorities as bearers of counterpublics on the theoretical level (Eckert and Chadha 2013; Foucault Welles and Jackson 2019; Jackson and Banaszczyk 2016; Jackson and Foucault Welles 2015; Squires 2002). It has been plausibly argued that such progressive public spheres constituted by marginalised groups against dominant structures should not only be a possible or preferred subject of research on counterpublics, but that the concept should be limited exclusively to them and not applied to arbitrary ideological contexts regardless social power structures (Jackson and Kreiss 2023).

In contrast, partially, there has been a theoretical shift away from actors’ identity as subaltern as a defining feature of counterpublics (Freudenthaler 2020; Thimsen 2017, 268–271) introduced by Fraser (1990, 67). Fraser’s (1990) influential concept has been expanded with respect to the understanding of the formation of counterpublics as a discursive process, especially in relation to other partial publics and the public at large. In this context, the theoretical work of Asen (2000) and Warner (2002) has been particularly influential. Asen (2000) noted that, according to Fraser’s (1990) approach, the counter of counterpublics can be understood, on the one hand, as defined by the status of subordinate actors in stratified and therefore unequal societies and, on the other hand, as a discursive construction. He warned not to reduce the oppositional character to definitions of persons, places, or topics alone, but to also consider discursive practices and norms. In this regard, he suggested defining the “counter as a constructed relationship” and focusing on “recognition of exclusion” rather than “exclusion per se” (Asen 2000, 427). Going beyond the definition of counterpublics as partial publics constituted by subalterns, Warner (2002, 86–87) emphasised the role of counterpublics in forming subaltern identities in the first place, some of which emerge only when addressed as members of a counterpublic. Interestingly, the shift in theory to the discursive construction of counterpublics formed the basis for opening the concept to the study of right-wing communication, as will be described in the following section.

Research on Right-Wing Publics and Theoretical Adaptations of Counterpublics

With the advent of the Internet and social media and the growing importance of right-wing online communication, scholars have identified the limits of concepts of counterpublics (Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019). On the one hand, in view of the rise of online communication, some theorists have even abandoned concepts of counterpublics and argued in favour of describing delimitations instead of strict distinctions between publics and counterpublics (Breese 2011; Kavada and Poell 2020). On the other hand, since right-wing actors prominently appeared in the early days of the web (Downey and Fenton 2003, 197–198), a growing body of literature deals with their online communication. Although scholars criticise the limitations of counterpublics as a normative approach, they adapt the concept of counterpublics to analyse right-wing online communication. These studies are dedicated to forums and social media sites of right-wing conservatives and far-right actors. Although they are not necessarily right-wing, the communication of climate sceptics is also used to expand the concepts of counterpublics away from progressive movements (Freudenthaler 2020; Holt 2018; Kaiser and Puschmann 2017; Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019; Reijven et al. 2020; Thimsen 2017). Additionally, researchers have examined comments on content of established journalistic media by members of such groups (Kaiser 2017; Kaiser and Puschmann 2017; Lien 2024; Toepfl and Piwoni 2015; 2018).

In theoretical terms, this research aims to detach the concept partly or completely from the implicit or explicit attachment to progressive movements, and therefore make it fruitful for the analysis of right-wing partial publics. For this purpose, researchers have drawn on Fraser’s (1990, 67) notion that some counterpublics “are explicitly anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian.”

Generally, researchers on right-wing publics follow established definitions of counterpublics regarding issues and actors opposed to hegemony as well as exclusion from the mainstream, but explicitly expand this understanding to right-wing actors (Kaiser 2017; Kaiser and Puschmann 2017; Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019; Thimsen 2017; Toepfl and Piwoni 2015; 2018; Xu 2020). In this regard, researchers have extended established concepts of counterpublics in a twofold way. First, researchers have developed theoretical concepts of counterpublics claiming to be free of normativity and ideology, as Freudenthaler (2020, 248–251) criticised. Second, they have expanded the understanding of counterpublics as the result of discursive construction, in line with Asen (2000; also see Thimsen 2017, 268–271). Research on right-wing counterpublics criticises established concepts as too normative and aims to develop frameworks suitable for all cases, whether actors’ democratic or antidemocratic goals, worldviews, or discursive practices. Related to this is a criticism that researchers in the field themselves sympathise with counterpublics perceived as progressive (Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019; Reijven et al. 2020).

On this note, Toepfl and Piwoni (2015; 2018) introduced a framework to analyse right-wing publics as counterpublics with respect to communicative spaces, participants, and discursive patterns or practices. Kaiser and Rauchfleisch (2019) provided an explicitly non-normative framework to analyse the processes of groups’ identity formation and agenda setting. Thus, the characteristics of right-wing publics as counterpublics and the dynamics between counterpublics and publics at large can be conceptualised. Similarly, Holt (2018) and Holt, Figenschou, and Frischlich (2019) defined counterpublics from a relational perspective of counterpublics and publics at large. For this purpose, alternative media as constituents of counterpublics, regardless of their ideological orientation, are specified with respect to their positioning toward other media outlets or the media system in relational or ideological anti-systemness (Holt 2018). In part, Freudenthaler (2020) criticised these denormativised approaches. In general, he argued for the conceptual inclusion of right-wing counterpublics, although he also argued that the expansion of discourse should be included as a quality of counterpublics. Accordingly, agonistic respect, which refers to the acceptance of opponents as legitimate actors, should be considered a normative criterion of counterpublics. By contrast, Reijven et al. (2020) even radicalised non-normative approaches by aiming at an “ideologically disinterested interpretation” (5347) because “a conception of counterpublicity should remain neutral of ideology” (5346).

Hegemony Without Power? Expansions of Theories of Hegemony

In part, these theoretical approaches to a partial or complete rejection of normativity go along with a conceptualisation that focuses on the discursive construction of counterpublics. Central to the theoretical shift is the understanding of power and hegemony. As Jackson and Kreiss (2023, 105) have pointed out, research conceptualising right-wing publics as counterpublics understands power exclusively as “discursive power.” This important argument can be extended by analysing that this limitation is not only due to an inadequate understanding of power, but—closely related to this—to a specific understanding of hegemony.

Fundamental to the theory of hegemony has been the work of Antonio Gramsci. Geoff Eley (1992) summarises Gramsci’s idea of hegemony and its significance for public-sphere theory. He describes hegemony as an order of dominant thought that is not limited to ideology enforced by a ruling class. Hence, hegemony is not only the result of the suppression of conflicting ideas, but also of persuasion and the creation of consensus. Consequently, hegemony is a constant process of negotiation. It is important that, in Gramsci’s understanding, this process is structured by social power relations (322–324). Like theorists of counterpublics, Gramsci understands the public sphere as an “arena of contested meanings, in which different and opposing publics manoeuvre for space” (Eley 1992, 325).

Among the theoretical developments of hegemony drawing on Gramsci, that of Chantal Mouffe (1999; Laclau and Mouffe 2014) has been one of the most influential. According to Laclau and Mouffe (2014), hegemony is “a political type of relation” instead of “a determinable location within a topography of the social” (125). Hegemony emerges “through a confrontation” between “antagonistic articulatory practices” (122). In their attempt “a deconstruction of […] classical Marxism” (xxiii), Laclau and Mouffe (2014) reject what they call “essentialist apriorism” (160): the emphasis on the relations of production and the resulting position of the working class as a “privileged agent” (161). While they reject the emphasis on economic power structures, they underline the importance of different forms of power as “relations of subordination” (137) against which struggles for hegemony can be directed. Consequently, it is precisely the lack of recognition of “power and antagonism” that Mouffe (1999, 752) criticises in Habermas’ theory. According to Mouffe (1999), consensus is not the result of deliberation, but “a temporary result of a provisional hegemony, as a stabilization of power” (756).

With respect to the analysis of right-wing publics, on the one hand, scholars argue that there is actually a hegemonic public discourse excluding right-wing actors and their opinions from mainstream media (Toepfl and Piwoni 2015; 2018). On the other hand, they refer to right-wing actors’ perceptions or claims of being excluded from social discourse (Holt 2018; Holt, Figenschou, and Frischlich 2019; Lien 2024; Reijven et al. 2020; Xu 2020). Kaiser (2017) integrates both aspects in his definition of counterpublics as being “opposed to the dominant hegemony within this discourse” and “perceiving itself as excluded from the public discourse” (1664). It is striking that with regard to a stated hegemony against right-wing actors, the underlying theoretical understanding of hegemony is barely elaborated on (Kaiser 2017; Kaiser and Puschmann 2017 Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019; Toepfl and Piwoni 2015; 2018). Instead, the basic theoretical assumptions are taken from other contexts such as Fraser’s (1990) concept. A hegemonic relationship is understood as a “hegemonic consensus in mainstream media discourse” on the one hand and the articulation of opposing opinions by right-wing actors on the other (Toepfl and Piwoni 2015, 466).

In contrast to these approaches, which also argue with actual discursive hegemony, other concepts refer solely to the perception of the actors. For the latter, research on right-wing counterpublics ties in with the theoretical shift toward discursive practices of exclusion in lieu of actors’ identity as subaltern, and manifest social exclusion (Asen 2000, 268–271; Thimsen 2017). In this context, both actors’ claims to produce alternative media or form counterpublics, and users’ perceptions gain attention (Frischlich et al. 2023; Schwarzenegger 2021). It is consistent that approaches that focus on the perception of content creators, the audience, or others as “counter-hegemonic” are not based on a theoretical understanding of hegemony (Holt, Figenschou, and Frischlich 2019, 863). However, this analytical argument is certainly linked to a theoretical one. In their rejection of all concepts that they understand as normative, researchers of this paradigm also include the theory of hegemony in the wake of Gramsci (Holt 2018, 50). For Reijven et al. (2020), the rejection of normativity goes so far as to decline any analytical criteria and only consider the self-attribution of the actors themselves as a neutral criterion. As Kunst, Toepfl, and Dogruel (2020) showed, actors’ self-attribution as suppressed can be characterised as a rhetorical strategy. By claiming to be marginalised, far-right activists imitate counterpublics (Tischauser and Musgrave 2020). However, they rely on dominant power structures and reinforce exclusionary mechanisms instead of overcoming them (Larson and McHendry 2019).

Whether in the assumption of actually existing discursive hegemony or the focus on perceptions of hegemony, the conceptualisations of right-wing counterpublics omit a central aspect: the connection between discursive hegemony and social power relations as explained above. Although the approaches offer useful heuristics for describing right-wing online communication at the micro level, they do not determine the relationship of such partial publics to social and media structures. Thus, I argue, the concept of counterpublics loses its materialist core and its explanatory potential. The application of the concept of counterpublics to various ideological contexts is therefore possible in principle, but the necessary adaptations lead to limitations in the theoretical content.

Overall, the review of current research reveals the benefits of concepts of counterpublics. These lie in the fact that it allows us to conceptualise several partial publics and to characterise the partial publics regarding their relation to one another as well as to the public at large. It links public communication to social theories, such as theories of hegemony, and integrates the dimensions of social structures and actors. However, weaknesses also become apparent. Not least is the shift in theory that takes place partly to make the concept fruitful for the analysis of right-wing actors’ communication. Scholars expand theories of hegemony and state that right-wing actors formed counterpublics against exclusionary publics at large. Beyond that, drawing on the assumption that counterpublics are discursively constructed, researchers refer to actors’ perceptions or claims of being excluded, regardless of their status or ideological position. However, with the emphasis of discursive constructions of counterpublics, the linking of the analysis of the articulation of public dissent to societal structures—or in other words, the connection between discursive hegemony and social power—is under threat.

Against the background of the current state of research on progressive as well as right-wing publics as counterpublics and the benefits and limits of theoretical approaches, the next section presents a historical and structural approach to counterpublics as an alternative to the focus on discursive constructions. Therefore, we elaborate on perspectives in the vein of Habermas (1991) and the critical discussion of his theory (Fraser 1990; Negt and Kluge 1993), which current works either only mention in passing or reject (but see Downey and Fenton 2003, 193). Based on these assumptions, a framework is developed that determines ideas and practices of counterpublics in relation to media structures.

A Historical and Structural Perspective on Counterpublics

With the theoretical shift from counterpublics as defined by the subaltern status of its members and by their opposition against material conditions to discursive practices, the underlying structures of (counter)publics and the broader societal context are left aside (Freudenthaler 2020, 249). Yet the importance of social structures for the understanding of the public sphere becomes clear from the historical perspective, which shows the changes and changeability of structures from the long-term perspective (Jackson and Kreiss 2023, 108). However, since Habermas’ (1991) analysis of the structural transformation of the bourgeois public sphere, the relationship between publics, counterpublics, and social structures has only been implicitly assumed.

This could be due to the fact that research on counterpublics has been closely linked to new social movements since the 1960s and has focused its attention on contemporary phenomena (Calhoun 2010, 307). To further elaborate on the structural transformation of counterpublics, in this paper, we develop a framework that allows us to analyse “how […] counterpublics change and shift over time in conjunction with broader political economic phenomena,” as outlined by Brian Dolber (2011, 91). Concepts of counterpublics that were developed in the critical continuation of Habermas’ (1991, xviii) notion of the “plebeian public sphere”—considering those who are excluded from the bourgeois public sphere primarily on the basis of class antagonism—provide a suitable foundation for this framework, particularly those of Fraser (1990) and Negt and Kluge (1993). The following part of this essay moves on to describe in greater detail the materialist concepts of counterpublics. The paper will then go on to present an analytical framework derived from these approaches.

Buried Roots: Materialist Foundations of Concepts of Counterpublics

Vitally, Fraser’s argument must be understood here again as a materialist-feminist approach and not reduced to a critique of the lack of representation of individual actors in the discourse alone without analysing social structures as the reason for exclusions. This Marxist understanding of the political–economic structure of society, and thus of the public sphere, specifies the notion of the subaltern as those who are not part of the ruling class, which typically can but need not coincide with a specific gender identity or membership in a minority (Fraser 1990, 67). In the same vein, Negt and Kluge (1993) introduced their approach of the proletarian counterpublic as a contrary concept to the bourgeois public sphere described theoretically-normatively as well as historically by Habermas (1991). They explicitly referred to the working class that has emerged since the eighteenth century as the subaltern in bourgeois societies. Although the authors admitted that the terms sound anachronistic, they claimed that bourgeois and proletarian describe ruling conditions in liberal societies until today (Negt and Kluge 1993, xliv–xlv). The authors defined proletarian counterpublics in relation—more specifically a dialectic relation—to the bourgeois public sphere, even “industrialised public spheres of production” that “incorporate private realms” and overlay the classical bourgeois public sphere (13). In contrast to Habermas (1991), Negt and Kluge (1993, 3) criticised the ideal of the bourgeois public sphere and not only its historical decay. For them, exclusions from the bourgeois public sphere are not defects but constitutive elements. Following a Marxist approach to ideology critique, Negt and Kluge elucidated that the bourgeois public sphere not only excludes specific political demands, but even the social experience of the working class in general, thereby negating a basic prerequisite of class consciousness and the articulation of politic interests. They stated that the bourgeois public sphere generalises bourgeois interests and simultaneously “claims to represent society as a whole” (1993, xlvi). By contrast, the proletarian “context of living”—collective interests and experiences of the working class—is excluded (6). Due to these “blockages” (31), the labour movement intended to develop “own forms of public sphere” “to express politically proletarian interests” (xlvii). However, the authors remarked that the attempts of this “empirical public sphere of workers” are not necessarily identical to those of a proletarian public sphere. The latter organises interests and experiences, develops class consciousness, and therefore forms the working class “as a class for itself” (291), according to Karl Marx. Rather, Negt and Kluge (1993, 81) perceived the establishment of a proletarian public sphere as a necessary part of a broader “transformation of the whole of society.” In this context, the authors understood counterpublic as a preliminary and transitional form of the public in the course of a transformation to a proletarian public sphere and a socialist society (91–92). Without the classification of interests and experiences in “totality” (83) or the “global context” (86), the proletarian public sphere exists only as a defensive niche or a “camp” in bourgeois society and its public sphere (237). Instead, the goal is to negate the bourgeois public sphere (35) and set “counterproducts of a proletarian public sphere: idea against idea, product against product, production sector against production sector” (79–80).

Thus, Negt and Kluge (1993, xlix) focused not only on the (excluded) contents but also on the social structures, such as the “bases of production, the structures of the public sphere and of the mass media.” Fraser (1990, 64–65) specified this materialist understanding of political economy and its consequences for the public sphere:

pressures are amplified, rather than mitigated, by the peculiar political economy of the bourgeois public sphere. In this public sphere, the media that constitute the material support for the circulation of views are privately owned and operated for profit. Consequently, subordinated social groups usually lack equal access to the means of equal participation. Thus, political economy enforces structurally what culture accomplishes informally.

According to their view on society as a whole and its transformation, Negt and Kluge distinguished specifically between different (potential) carriers of counterpublics. In contrast to other concepts, they thus differentiated “between those social forces that are in a position to accomplish a full-scale reorganization of society in the future” on the one hand “and those that, under specific conditions, are primarily directed at overthrowing obsolete structures of authority” on the other (1993, 94). In line with a Marxist understanding, it was the working class as the “producers of social wealth” (91) who could drive forward a transformation of society. According to this understanding, counterpublics of, for instance, the ecological or feminist movement, would have to develop broader alliances in order to achieve a transformation of the public sphere beyond a counterpublic (Downey and Fenton 2003, 194; Negt and Kluge 1993, 287). Following this argument, different counterpublics cannot be classified normatively of being commercial or not, as they are always shaped and constrained by the dominant structures of publics. Instead, they are analysed regarding their potential or at least aim “to challenge the dominant public sphere” (Downey and Fenton 2003, 193). This approach conceptualises “each understanding itself as a nucleus for an alternative organization of society” that emphasises “alliances” to avoid being “neutralized” or “polarized in a reductive competition of victimizations” (194).

By analytically linking positions and representations in discourse with the structuring effect of social power relations, materialist concepts of counterpublics are tied to hegemony theory (Fraser 1990, 62). Miriam Hansen (1993, xxx) has stated in her foreword to the work of Negt and Kluge: “Without using the Gramscian term, they describe mechanisms of exclusion and silencing as hegemonic principles and, conversely, formulate the contestation of those principles from the position of the subaltern.”

Counterpublics and (Hybrid) Media Systems: Alternative Media, Mainstream Media, Social Media

For the understanding of counterpublics, their relationship to the media, which are decisive in shaping publics, is constitutive. In view of hybrid media systems, a distinction will be made in the following between alternative media, mainstream media, and social media.

First, we draw on relationist approaches that define alternative media “as alternatives to and supplementing mainstream media on an organizational and content level.” As Bailey, Cammaerts, and Carpentier (2008, 18) have pointed out, this means that the definition of alternative media is thus contingent and dependent on the definition of mainstream media.

Among these concepts, John D. H. Downing (2001) has categorised alternative media—which he has named more precisely as radical alternative media—in a similar theoretical context that we have outlined up to this point. Downing (2001) has defined alternative media as “relatively free from the agenda of the powers that be and sometimes in opposition to one or more elements in that agenda” (8). According to him, social movement actors are carriers of alternative media. Alternative media constitute alternative publics—a term he uses synonymous to counterpublics. Downing (2001) states that alternative media are shaped by power structures and promote “counterhegemony” (15). He does not limit his definition to progressive actors and their media, but also includes authoritarian and right-wing media. For this purpose, he distinguishes between “repressive radical media” and “democratic radical media” (89). However, following the argumentation developed in the previous sections and also the argumentation of Downing (2001) himself, one can come to the divergent conclusion that, according to the criterion of the relationship to social power structures and to structures of the media system, publics constituted by right-wing actors cannot be characterised as counterpublics.

The newer concepts, which explicitly include right-wing communication, tie in with the relational perspective, but—as explained above—emphasise perception as a central criterion: “Alternative news media represent a proclaimed and/or (self-)perceived corrective, opposing the overall tendency of public discourse emanating from what is perceived as the dominant mainstream media in a given system” (Holt, Figenschou, and Frischlich 2019, 862).

Definitions of alternative media tend to characterise them by their niche existence and their limited distribution and, accordingly, to understand their counterparts, mainstream media, primarily as mass media (Atton 2002, 39). More recent approaches highlight that “the internet […] allows counterpublics to create a variety of alternative media (e.g. own websites, own blogs, YouTube channels, Soundcloud channels, etc.)” (Kaiser and Rauchfleisch 2019, 247). This raises the question of the relationship of newer platforms and social media to alternative media and mainstream media and consequently their role in the constitution of counterpublics as will be discussed in the following.

The “further structural transformation” in the course of the rise of online communication changed the political economy of the public sphere (Habermas 2022, 146) and thus the reference point of counterpublics presented here. The fundamental change lies in the emergence of platforms as newer media with a different logic to older media. Basically, both older and newer media in hybrid media systems (Chadwick 2017) follow a commercial logic or—like public service media—must be guided by this logic in a competitive situation. However, while the press or broadcasters produce content themselves, platforms are intermediaries that generate advertising revenue based on user data without providing their own content (Habermas 2022, 163). From the perspective of a unified public sphere, this change in the media poses a problem, firstly because it leads to a fragmentation of the public sphere and secondly because it puts pressure on the role of older media as gatekeepers (160). In addition, the Internet was seen as an opportunity to create virtual counterpublics, which were set in opposition to the public sphere of the traditional mass media (Downey and Fenton 2003, 199). In contrast, a perspective on counterpublics in relation to economic structures of the public analyses both the limited abilities for alternative communication in view of professional gatekeepers in a commercial mass media system and the dominance of media conglomerates such as platforms in hybrid media systems (188). Consequently, corporate-controlled spaces of social media and alternative media controlled by movement actors must be distinguished.

Framework: Ideas and Practices of Counterpublics and Structural Change

Thus far, the essay has argued that materialist approaches are more suitable to analyse counterpublics than concepts that put emphasis on discursive constructions. Drawing on this historical and structural strand of research, we identify the underlying structures of public spheres, especially in relation to political economy, as central. Accordingly, the counter in counterpublics can be explicitly considered an opposition to the structures of (hybrid) media systems. From such a perspective, non-represented topics and hegemonic discourses are seen as a consequence of these structures rather than as the defining feature of counterpublics. Some more recent theoretical approaches, like the classical attempts, place structure at the centre of the analysis of (counter)publics. Craig Calhoun (2010) describes public spheres in the “field of power” (328) “as products of social struggles, institutional formations, and culture” (329). Jackson and Kreiss (2023, 108–109) specify the understanding of power with respect to history, social differentiation across and within social groups, relations between groups, relations with and within institutions, resources, and access. Following Negt and Kluge (1993) and Fraser (1990), the approach outlined here emphasises media structures in particular as the direct reference point of counterpublics for the transformation of the public sphere and society.

Based on the classical approaches, a framework is derived to analyse counterpublics in view of media and political change (see Table 1). This framework provides a heuristic to link the macro-theories of public communication to observable phenomena. Drawing on Negt and Kluge (1993) and Fraser (1990), the two main categories conceptualise counterpublics in relation to the public at large and consider both ideas and practices of publics and counterpublics. In line with the materialist approaches outlined above, counterpublic communication is placed in the broader context of societal framework conditions. Accordingly, our focus is on the relationship of the counterpublics to media structures. Furthermore, in line with the theoretical approaches, we include the interests, experiences, and needs of the subaltern in relation to media structures as central categories.

TABLE 1. Analytical framework of ideas and practices of counterpublics and structural change.

Dimensions of (Counter)Publics	Ideas and practices regarding
(Hybrid) Media system structures	Societal context, legal regulations (media and communication freedom), media economy (distribution, financing)
Organisational media and communication structures	Role of owners/publishers, organisations, and their members (e.g. parties, trade unions)
(Media) Product structures	Style and content: experiences and interests of subaltern (in relation to (hybrid) media system structures)
(Journalistic) Production	Profession, role, employment
Reception	Addressee, role of audience: needs of subaltern

Given that concepts of counterpublics have been developed mainly in sociology and philosophy, their relationships with communication and the media have remained partly underexamined. The social-philosophical and macro-theoretical approaches can be specified with the findings of communication research on the actors and structures of communication and media (Fuchs 2010). Therefore, the categories derived from Negt and Kluge’s (1993) and Fraser’s (1990) approaches are systematised as (hybrid) media system structures (societal context, legal regulations, media economy), organisational media and communication structures (the role of owners/publishers as well as external organisations and their members), (media) product structures (style and content regarding experiences and interests of the subaltern), (journalistic) production (profession, role, and employment), and reception (addressees and the role of audiences regarding the needs of the subaltern).

By focusing on media structures, the proposed framework is not without limitations regarding other dimensions. It does not place other structures, such as power in terms of gender and race, at the centre of the analysis. Instead, the framework considers subaltern or marginalised actors in their relationship to media structures.

Overall, drawing on a historical and structural perspective, opposition to the structures of (hybrid) media systems emerges clearly as a criterion to characterise counterpublics. In this regard, counterpublics necessarily express an oppositional relationship with the dominant media system enabled by political economy. This emphasises media structures in relation to political-economic structures as determining factors for the constitution of the public sphere. Thus, it offers an alternative to approaches that refer to actors’ perceptions or claims. Furthermore, the considerations provide a framework to examine the ideas and practices of the counterpublics thus defined. In the following pages, I will present empirical examples to illustrate the analytical framework.

Counterpublics in the History of Communication

The next section provides an account of how the framework can be used to systematise previous research or as a heuristic for further studies. The theoretical assumptions developed up to this point drawing on Negt and Kluge (1993), Fraser (1990), and Fuchs (2010) regarding counterpublics as being characterised by their opposition to the structures of media systems are demonstrated by the following examples: by attempts at counterpublics in view of media change in Europe and the US, from the rise of a commercial press market superseding press under feudal rule, the advent of broadcasting and commercial diversification, to the emergence of online platforms. The ideas and practices of counterpublics are contrasted with the approaches of right-wing communication and media.

Ideas and Practices of Counterpublics in View of the Rise of a Commercial Press Market

Following the criterion of the relationship to media structures, publics and counterpublics cannot be distinguished as long as feudal rule suppresses both bourgeois and subaltern classes, albeit to widely varying degrees. Censorship determines the structures of public communication and generally limits the emergence of a (counter)public sphere. In Europe until the nineteenth century, liberal thinkers identified similar problems about remnants of feudal media and political structures and pursued widely the same goals to overcome them as the early labour movement and its leaders. In this regard, Negt and Kluge (1993, 264) stated that “authoritarian censorship [and] external censorship of the press” were “directed just as much against the bourgeois as against the proletariat.” Therefore, “Marx’s and Engels’s attitude to press freedom is governed by the struggle against” these measures of repression (264). As Craig Calhoun describes in a more nuanced way on the example of Great Britain in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, this constellation shifts already with “the constitution of the ‘bourgeois’ public sphere on the basis of economic exclusion backed up by political power” (2010, 316). He analyses how “bourgeois intellectuals and political actors struggled to win social space from aristocratic domination but also to exclude plebeian and proletarian voices from the public sphere they helped create” (309) “by means of government policy and economic restriction: censorship, newspaper taxes, seizure of stock, and arrests” (312). Press freedom was among those “rights that the bourgeoisie would have had to struggle for in the interests of its own rule but which, in its fear, it now sought to deny the workers” (Friedrich Engels, 1884, quoted in Negt and Kluge 1993, 264). The division of partially overlapping interests between the bourgeoisie and the working class after the French Revolution was reflected in the British public sphere in “respectable” newspapers with stamps indicating the payment of taxes on the press and “radical” unstamped papers in opposition to the government and excluded from regular press distribution. Despite suppression, the radical press flourished at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. Interestingly, it was the media change with the emergence of a commercial media system, which is usually seen as a breakthrough in press freedom, that marked the end of the radical press (Williams 2010, 75–96). The liberalisation of the press market with the lifting of taxes in newspapers until the mid of the nineteenth century did not only lead to the emergence of a popular mass press financed by advertising rather than sales revenues, but also to the decline of the radical working-class press that could not compete in this commercial press market. Therefore, with regard to the radical press, “advertising did not help to liberate the press but operated as a new method of control” (76).

In view of a public sphere largely constituted by the media system structures of an ad-financed press market, actors that considered themselves disadvantaged developed the ideas and practices of counterpublics. The international labour movement evolved the idea of the need for a socialist press as a counterweight to the dominant bourgeois media and founded party or union newspapers (Downing 2001, 148–149). This included an understanding of journalists as partisan socialists. Beyond concepts of own media, Ferdinand Lassalle ([1863] 1892), one of the founding fathers of the German labour movement, presented the idea that a socialist state should generally abandon a press financed by advertising. In the face of capitalist press structures, these ideas of a socialist press with alternative organisational structures could only be rudimentarily translated into practices.

An empirical example is given by Brian Dolber (2011), who exemplifies the aim of “resistance to dominant media structures” (106) on the Jewish working class press in the United States. He concludes that despite commercial and state pressure and adaptations to commercial requirements, due to a close relationship to organisations of community, the U.S. Yiddish socialist press was able to at least partially build counterpublics (101). However, ultimately, “the power gained by compromise with state and commercial interests bred an unmaking of both counterpublic and community” (104). As the example of the Jewish Daily Forward illustrates, media product structures whose focus centred on the interests of the subaltern was in tension with the commercial demands of advertising financing: While the organ of the Jewish labour movement “worked to commodify its readership, it maintained its role as an alternative media institution by continuing to foster community and spaces for oppositional politics” (Dolber 2016, 185).

While the labour movement developed ideas and practices of a socialist press to counter a bourgeois public and ultimately establish alternative media structures, conservative or liberal newspapers directed themselves, if at all, only rhetorically against capitalist media structures. Rather, for example in Germany, publishers combined commercial goals with direct political intentions or at least did not see a liberal or nationalist orientation of their titles as contrary to their profit motives (Ross 2008, 32).

The Advent of Broadcasting

The media transformation sparked by the spread of broadcasting and film in the 1920s and 1930s in Europe and the United States was associated with extensive political control of media structures by state authorities—with differences between the respective countries. In view of the control of the means of production of radio broadcasting by the state instead of the commercial structures of the press, in addition to creating own media such as a socialist press, ideas, and practices of counterpublics increasingly included media policy measures that aimed at legal regulation and changing media structures, too. Further, ever since the emergence of radio, approaches to state and market-independent broadcasting have been associated with ideas and practices of listener participation and self-control. In this way, they partly countered the image of passive consumers with concepts of active recipients (Bailey, Cammaerts, and Carpentier 2008, 51–61).

However, state monopolies of ownership or licensing were not only challenged by attempts at counterpublics, but also by commercial interests. The example of the further development of broadcasting in the 1970s and 1980s shows the distinguishing factors between counterpublics and right-wing activities regarding their relation to state-controlled and commercial media structures. As scholars have described for different cases in Europe, alternative community radio stations appeared alongside private providers with commercial interests. However, the latter were not aiming for alternatives to dominant media structures, but rather for the expansion of the commercial structures of other media such as the press or other industries outside the media. In this context, the entrepreneur and politician Silvio Berlusconi is the most prominent example of the connection between initiatives to liberalise and commercialise media structures and right-wing politics. In the end, privatisation and liberalisation of media structures prevailed and alternative radios were barely able to establish themselves (Bailey, Cammaerts, and Carpentier 2008, 51–61; Downing 2001, 184–186). Overall, it can thus be concluded that without a broader (media)political upheaval, the rejection of both state and private sector structures could not be dialectically resolved through the establishment of alternative broadcasting structures.

The Emergence of Online Platforms

With the rise of online communication, a plethora of platforms with different political stances emerged. In terms of their style and content, the role of content producers, and the audience, both radical left-wing and right-wing online communication—similar to the press and broadcasting—cannot always be categorised in stark contrast to mainstream media. Instead, regarding their content and overlaps in personnel and audience, they are more likely to be located on a “continuum” (Holt, Figenschou, and Frischlich 2019, 861) either with centre-left and left-liberal or conservative and right-wing legacy media. For instance, Mayerhöffer and Heft (2022, 1421) have shown that—despite their frequent critique of mainstream media—, right-wing alternative news media in the US and European countries relied heavily on external references, particularly conservative or right-leaning news media, to legitimise their stories. Complementarily, right-wing alternative media and their topics receive attention in mainstream media, albeit limited and quite critical (Nygaard 2020).

However, with regard to their organisational structures and the relationship to overarching structures of the media system, the differences between progressive and right-wing actors’ online communication become clearer. Left-wing sites such as Indymedia tried to establish new media structures online that were directed against the commercial press and broadcasting. These projects aimed not only to challenge the established media, but also to build independent networks based on an alternative organisational model of the media (Milioni 2009, 419). Despite a less radical political approach, the same applies to citizen journalism initiatives and online community media (Engesser and Wimmer 2009).

In the US, popular channels and websites such as Newsmax, Breitbart, or Infowars have challenged more established right-wing conservative outlets such as Fox News. They have been labelled as a counterpublic and claim to form in response to supposed left-wing or liberal hegemony (Lee 2017, 895; Thimsen 2017). However, these media outlets from the US benefit from largely unregulated online platforms in hybrid media systems. Breitbart has been funded by investor multi-billionaire hedge-fund manager Robert Mercer (Thimsen 2017, 272). The “ideological entrepreneur” Alex Jones (Van den Bulck and Hyzen 2020) has developed his website Infowars and his radio programme as a business model based on subscriptions, advertising and the selling of books, merchandise, and other products (Reijven et al. 2020, 5335–5336). More recently, similar projects with significant financing from wealthy individuals or funds have occurred in other countries, such as the British GB News.

There is no doubt that self-positioning as anti-establishment, which current research has highlighted, is one of the main sources of the popularity of these offerings. A significant group sees itself represented in these products (Schwarzenegger 2021). However, the self-attribution can be questioned with regard to the relationship to economic power relations and commercial media structures. While there are models based on small donations, the socio-political origin of these offers as a commercial business model instead of a collective organisation is typical.

The examples of right-wing online media illustrate the problem of transferring the concept of counterpublics to diverse ideological contexts. A structural perspective on media change in the vein of works of researchers such as Negt and Kluge (1993) goes beyond looking at the fundamental expansion of opportunities to express dissent compared to traditional mass media—whether in the sense of a progressive or right-wing political objective. Instead, it analyses the relationship between counterpublics and the commercial media structures of online communication shaped by platforms (Sevignani 2022, 103–106).

The sketch of transformations in communication history in the US and Europe—from the press under feudal rule, the diversification of a commercial mass press, widely state-controlled broadcasting to public and private television and the rise of online platforms in liberal democracies—illustrates the identification of counterpublics following the criterion of opposition to structures of the media system. In view of such changes in media and politics, actors developed ideas and practices of counterpublics that can be further examined with the framework introduced as exemplified, among others, with the concept of a socialist press opposed to dominant publics. As it has been shown, this was connected with a specific understanding of press freedom, journalistic roles, and ideas of alternatives to ad financing. In contrast, the relationship of right-wing actors to media structures can be distinguished. According to this criterion, right-wing communication cannot usually be characterised as a counterpublic.

Conclusion

This conceptual paper aims to contribute to current debates on the development of concepts of counterpublics in view of the increasing importance of right-wing actors’ online communication with a long-term historical perspective on structural changes in media and politics. First, it identifies theoretical shortcomings, especially with regard to the understanding of hegemony, which lead to losses in the explanatory potential of the concept of counterpublics. The sole focus on discursive constructions and perceptions of actors limits the understanding of counterpublics. Second, as an alternative, the paper proposes the relationship to media structures as a clear criterion for distinguishing counterpublics. Based on classical theories, the aim and potential to fundamentally change the structures of public spheres can be identified as a key aspect. Thirdly, it categorises the latest media changes in comparison with previous upheavals. This historical perspective shows the fundamental relationship between counterpublics and media structures, which distinguishes them from recent phenomena of right-wing online communication.

For this purpose, current research on both progressive and right-wing online publics conceptualised by scholars as counterpublics was reviewed. To specifically open the concept to the analysis of right-wing counterpublics, scholars have expanded theories of hegemony and stated that right-wing actors are excluded in liberal publics. Further, a partial shift in theoretical terms took place. Referring to the assumption that counterpublics are discursively constructed, researchers have defined counterpublics according to actors’ perceptions or claims of being excluded regardless of their actual status, ideological orientation, or the goals they pursue with their public communication. These approaches omit the connection between discursive hegemony and social power relations. In such a perspective, which deprives the concept of counterpublics of its materialist core, the determination of the relationship of partial publics to social structures is in danger of being lost. Previous studies have shown how important the (self-)attribution of right-wing media as anti-establishment is for their popularity. However, beyond this perception, it is crucial to analyse their relationship to power structures (Jackson and Kreiss 2023). To this end, this article proposes to focus on the relationship to media structures as constitutive for the public sphere and its potential transformation.

Against this background, a long-term historical perspective on counterpublics and structural changes in media and politics is presented. This perspective allows the development of a definition of counterpublics as an alternative to actor-centred approaches. Thus, the criterion of self-attribution is avoided, and classification in larger contexts of social structures is emphasised. Therefore, we identify the criterion of opposition to the structures of the media system as essential to characterise counterpublics. Drawing on a re-reading of classical concepts of counterpublics (Fraser 1990; Negt and Kluge 1993), a framework is developed that conceptualises ideas and practices of counterpublics in relation to other counterpublics and publics at large. Referring to findings of communication and media research (Fuchs 2010), these ideas and practices are differentiated by the dimensions of (hybrid) media system structures, organisational media and communication structures, (media) product structures, (journalistic) production, and reception.

Referring the criterion of opposition to structures of media systems, counterpublics can be distinguished throughout communication history, as illustrated in the case of Europe and the US from the press in the nineteenth century to the rise of online platforms. Furthermore, the framework allows for a more thorough analysis of these counterpublics identified, as for instance, in the labour movement and the idea of own media against a bourgeois public and the practice of party newspapers.

By analysing prior upheavals from a long-term historical perspective, this study suggests that in view of recent changes—such as the advent of social media and the increasing relevance of right-wing online communication—research on counterpublics should focus more on ideas and practices that aim at media structures. More specifically, media structures are crucial for ideas and practices of public communication and reflect broader political or economic structures. In contrast to counterpublics opposed to the structures of media systems throughout history, right-wing news outlets usually do not reject dominant structures. Therefore, the approach introduced here offers arguments for distinguishing most right-wing (online) communication from counterpublics.

Overall, the framework offers the possibility for further research to place counterpublics in the larger context of earlier and current transformations in media and politics. On the one hand, it directs attention back to largely ignored approaches to the establishment of counterpublics in the context of, for instance, the civil rights movement, the early feminist movement, or trade unions and political parties prior to the 1960s and enables a reconsideration of the initiatives of the then-emerging new social movements and their relationship to media structures (Calhoun 2010). On the other hand, such analyses offer the possibility to distinguish newer expressions of public dissent in hybrid media systems in a comparative way—whether considering hashtag activism of progressive protest movements or the proliferation of right-wing online communication.

In this context, the historical and structural perspective draws attention to the relationship between counterpublics and media policy (Venema 2023). The observations of “fundamental contradictions between expanding societal production and continuing private appropriation” Negt and Kluge (1993, 177) made in view of highly concentrated press markets in the 1960s seem to be even more relevant with the recent rise of online platforms (Staab and Thiel 2022). Consequently, “all these norms, founded on early bourgeois ideals, operate here as mechanisms of censorship that prevent the creation of a public sphere within which the entire experience of society organizes itself” (Negt and Kluge 1993, 265). Therefore, beyond the content of online communication, following historical-structural approaches, the potential of counterpublics to challenge or overthrow these structures (Sevignani 2022) should become the focus of research.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Niklas Venema

Niklas Venema (corresponding author) is junior professor in communication and media change at the Leipzig University.