After the books of Hannah Arendt (The Human Condition, 1958) and Jurgen Habermas (Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 1962) the concept of public sphere has undergone enormous changes and critical evaluations.

The International Conference Public Sphere Reconsidered, organized in May 19 and 20 by the Faculty of Arts and Letters from University of Beira Interior, Citizens Agenda Project and Communication and Deliberation Project, with the support from Communication and Democracy Section of European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) and the Political Communication and Rhetoric Working Groups from SOPCOM, tried to answer some recurring issues in this debate. Among these were the following:
• a) How can we assess today, in the normative and heuristic plans, the strength of the ideal that aims to establish a rational and egalitarian public sphere, supported in an enlightened public opinion?
• b) What is the impact of media in the conceptualization of this public sphere?
• c) Should we consider only the existence of a single national public sphere or the existence of multiple public spheres?
• d) Are public journalism, civic journalism, citizen journalism and blogs helping to legitimize a discourse of revitalization of public sphere?
• e) Which are the limits and possibilities of new technologies to invigorate the public sphere?
• f) What’s the importance of rhetoric in contemporary public sphere?
• g) The so-called democratic deficit of the European Union, heralded by some authors, became a topic of major relevance. At a time when the decisionmaking power is transferred from national bodies elected directly by citizens to transnational instances, what does mean to search for a European Public Sphere?
• h) In face of the fragmentation of contemporary societies, with multiplication of claims for recognition presented by multifarious identities, may we still speak about an unitarian concept of public sphere?
To answer to these and to many other issues, about fifty researchers from different parts of the world (South Africa, Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, United States, Italy, Hungary, Portugal and Romania) joined the University of Beira Interior, in Covilhã, ina small mountain city, to discuss it during two intellectually exciting and productive days. The result is partially represented in this book, the result of the work undertaken by those researchers.