you will need to include this in your essay, as it provides a framework for why we have newspapers, what is the point and purpose of them – the idea of a democratic society enabled by news, information, ideas and debate.

It is argued that “a public space between the private domain and the state in which public opionion was formed and ‘popular’ supervision of government was established” 

(p. 82: 1996)

The public sphere is a realm of communication and is the reality of the world vs private realm.

• Habermas argues that the development of early modern capitalism brought into being an autonomous arena of public debate.
• arena of public debate
• …the critical reflection fostered by letters and novels, the flowering of discussion in coffee houses and salons and, above all, the emergence of an independent, market-based press.
• a new public engaged in critical political discussion
• …was restricted to the propertied class (i.e., the class of the owners)