''New'' Theories of the Public and Actuality: Hierarchical System of Influence and Hegemony of Immaterial Labor
''New'' Theories of the Public and Actuality: Hierarchical System of Influence and Hegemony of Immaterial Labor

Summary/Abstract: The article considers "new" theories of the public, sometimes also called "postmodern" theories, which emphasize the openness of the mediated public sphere and plurality of symbolic publics, which can find the modus of their interests with the help of the steering capability of the system of influence. The author argues that it is possible to envisage a consensus between symbolic publics only because the theories are funded in the liberal tradition, which presupposes the interests and rationality of the members of the publics to be autonomous in relation to the material conditions in which they live. When historical-material thought is applied, two types of inequalities that permeate the system of influence are revealed, the structural and the relational one. These in reality lead to the formation of partial publics and a fragmented public sphere. However, public actors do not call into question the origins of the mentioned inequalities, because in times of the hegemony of immaterial labor, they (public actors) are both consumers and producers of ideological forms, which engender an "objective" world view based on the model of circulation (the market). The creation of the common worldview in turn creates the neutral base for a "new" kind of refeudalization of the public sphere. This is now carried out by classes and members of the public that did not take part in the "classical" intrusion of private interests into the public sphere in the time of modernity.

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