Habermas defined the public sphere as a virtual or imaginary community which does not necessarily exist in any identifiable space. In its ideal form, the public sphere is “made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state”

Habermas’s theory of communicative action rests on the idea that social order ultimately depends on the capacity of actors to recognize the intersubjective validity of the different claims on which social cooperation depends.

In The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, Habermas showed how modern European salons, cafés, and literary groups contain the resources for democratizing the public sphere.

A public sphere is the basic requirement to mediate between state and society and in an ideal situation permits democratic control of state activities. To allow discussions and the formation of a public opinion a record of state-related activities and legal actions has to be publicly accessible.