• Habermas is a philosopher and sociologist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism.
• His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere.
• Habermas defines communication as strictly what happens between two or more talking seriously about something that exists or should exist in the world, but no one disputes the validity of the statements or suggestions made by and each other. Communication therefore uses a medium in and through which it occurs: the language.
• The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action
• media act in the ‘public sphere’ in the ‘public interest’
• media as watchdog

“a public space between the private domain and the state in which public opinion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established” (p. 82: 1996)