106 Philosophical Frames
appears as the means through which public discourse comes to be shared
by strangers, thereby forming larger social units or even nations as imag-
ined communities. In modern societies equipped with print and visual
media, public spaces become “metatopical,”^40 that is, they are nonlocal
spaces that create a plethora of bonds between the recipients of publicized
discourses. This seems to be the general anthropological sense of the term
“public.”
ut while the anthropological approach would seem to render a dis- B
tinct theory of the public sphere unnecessary, it also leaves us with no
conceptual framework within which to understand the truly self-reflexive
liminality implied in Turner’s idea of social drama. Anthropology con-
flates dramatic publicity with the everyday functioning of discursive cir-
culation. The confusion between public and public sphere seems in fact to
stem from the indiscriminate use of the concept of visibility.
ot confining oneself to the limited sense of visual performance, N
but taking up the question in a more ontological sense, it can be said that
the opening of a space of appearance transforms otherwise unconnected
people into a “commun-ity.” Without the appearance, to heterogeneous
publics, of conflicts and identities, differences, commonalities and power
structures, neither the designation of a given problem as a common prob-
lem that prompts action, nor proper “commun-ication” (rendering com-
mon) is possible. It is only within this space and through the interac-
tions that bring it about that subjects can truly become agents of change.
However, while visibility certainly denotes appearance, politically speak-
ing, it may also take on the meaning of “mere appearance.” A whole range
of issues may have “ocular” visibility in technologically advanced societ-
ies (thus becoming “spectacular” objects on television screens) without
ever calling into being a reflexive-critical public. The passive reception
of such visible objects must be distinguished from the more active tak-
ing up of space within any given social imaginary. Likewise, becoming
an object of spectacle has little to do with becoming visible as a subject of
action. Mere coexistence or copresence does not open up a space of action
per se, for the simple reason that it does not disturb any mode of normal
behavior. The kind of presence that carries the potential of creating spaces
of action or new spaces of “commun-ity” could schematically be called
“making an appearance” or “gaining publicity” in contradistinction to