Is Dewey's Theory of the Public Realizable? No

Dewey holds that public come into existence when things get bad: “Indirect, extensive, enduring and serious consequences of conjoint and interacting behavior call a public into existence having a common interest in controlling these consequences”
p. 126

Dewey makes it clear that obstacles to good public discourse do exist:

Special interests
Powerful corporate capital
Numbing and distracting entertainment
General selfishness
Vagaries of public communication make effective public deliberation difficult.

But, he argues, we can overcome this with good communication:
"Without such communication the public will remain shadowy and formless … Till the Great Society is converted into a Great Community, the Public will remain in eclipse. Communication can alone create a great community." p. 142

According to Alejandro's summation (p. 169), the following conditions for emergence of the public:

1) Dissemination and application of scientific knowledge
2) "Communication of the results of social inquiry," which "is the same thing as the formation of public opinion." (31)
3) The organization of effective and organized inquiry." (32)
4) Record and communication, which "are indispensable to knowledge" (33)
-- Footnotes from Chapter 6 of Hermeneutics, Citizenship, and the Public Sphere, by Roberto Alejandro
Dewey makes the best argument against his public

Given these requirements, Dewey's own points at the beginning of his book work against the creation of a public.

Dewey states that "political facts are not outside human desire and judgment." (p. 6) So, how do we ascertain what facts we should follow?

Dewey argues that "the difference between facts which are what they are independent of human desire and endeavor and facts which are to some extent what they are because of human interest and purpose, and which alter with alteration in the latter, cannot be got rid of by any methodology."

Dewey suggests we "appeal to facts" and pay attention to the "distinction between facts which condition human activity and facts which are conditioned by human activity." If we ignore this difference "social science becomes "psuedo-science."

Well, how do we pay attention to the distinction, when the people paying attention are not "outside human desire and judgment."? In effect, positivism is easily dismissed because nobody can actually agree upon which facts they agree are truthful. And, if the public sphere begins with scientific knowledge and a dissemination of this knowledge, then the realization of the public sphere breaks down right there.