1. What role does the normative play in different theorists’
attempts to formulate a notion of the public?

2. Are liberal individualist theories of the public the
antithesis of other theories of the public, or can they be
seen as complementary?

3.Habermas’s theory of the public sphere has more to offer
than any of those that preceded it. Do you agree?

4. What is the public interest and how can we know it?

5. Feminist theorists agree on their diagnosis of the faults
of other theories of the public, but not on what should be
done to remedy them. Is this a fair characterisation?

6. How is Sennett’s conception of the public as a realm of
sociability related to theories of the public that view it as
political?