Since the 1980s, there has been a growing body of critical theory in information systems research. A central theoretical foundation of this research is Habermas’ theory of communicative action, which focuses on implications of speech and proposes general normative standards for communication. Habermas also places particular emphasis on the importance of the public sphere in a democratic society...

BACKGROUND Amidst diverging discourses describing chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) and healthcare access, the hermeneutical tradition within sociology, particularly as exemplified in the work of Jurgen Habermas, provides a starting point for exploring and interpreting the experiences of chronic illness and healthcare access. In this study, we aimed to understand how women living with NCDs...

Self-help groups in the United Kingdom continue to grow in number and address virtually every conceivable health condition, but they remain the subject of very little theoretical analysis. The literature to date has predominantly focused on their therapeutic effects on individual members. And yet they are widely presumed to fulfil a broader civic role and to encourage democratic citizenship. Th...

1 See, for example, J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume 1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans. T. McCarthy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1987 [1981]), hereafter TCA I, pp. xli and xliv. See also J. Habermas, On the Pragmatics of Social Interaction: Preliminary Studies in the Theory of Communicative Action, trans. B. Fultner (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001 [1984]), p...

Article history: Received 9 June 2010 Received in revised form 7 June 2011 Accepted 7 June 2011 Available online 1 July 2011 Habermas' critical social theory has proven to be an important and useful lens in information systems research, especially in understanding the communicative potential of information systems and in conceiving alternative approaches to information systems development. As c...

This article explores the idea of the democratic public sphere, and it is grounded in the work of Jurgen Habermas. Libraries help make possible the democratic public sphere ideal in the form of rational organization of human cultural production and they embody an essential element of democracy: a place where the ideal of unfettered communication and investigation exists in rudimentary form, hos...

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