After modernism and postmodernism, it is argued, the everyday supposedly is where a democracy of taste is brought into being - the place where art goes to recover its customary and collective pleasures, and where the shared pleasures of popular culture are indulged, from celebrity magazines to shopping malls.
John Roberts argues that this understanding of the everyday downgrades its revolutionary meaning and philosophical implications. Bringing radical political theory back to the centre of the discussion, he shows how notions of cultural democratization have been oversimplified....

Critiquing Habermas, this volume bring fresh perspectives and ideas to bear on debates about the public sphere.

• Engages in different ways with Jurgen Habermas's seminal study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.
  
• Moves beyond Habermas by reflecting on current social processes and events, such as anti-corporate protests and the emergence of the Internet.
  
• Considers alternative theories by Bakhtin, Bourdieu and Honneth, among others.
  
• Combines work by established commentators and new researchers.