ABSTRACT
The term 'public sphere' is among the most popular within contemporary studies of media and politics—indeed, it is so much part of their common sense that its genealogy is normally overlooked. The modern prominence of the public sphere concept was initially bound up with the struggle against despotic states in the European region. The financial footings of public service broadcasting in the European region are tending to crack and crumble. Highly important as well is the advantageous fact that transnational media firms are able to evade nation-state regulations and shift the core energies of the whole operation from one market to another as political and legal and cultural climates change. The contemporary malaise of public service broadcasting has several deep-seated causes, three of which bear directly on the theory of the public sphere: Micro-Public Spheres, Meso-public Spheres, and Macro-public Spheres.
