The authors examine the characteristics of the counter public sphere during the late Chosun era based on three dimensions: historical, ideological, and analytical. The counter public sphere during the late Chosun era was a lively communicative sphere where the common people, who resisted the premodern ideas and foreign power, tried to overcome the oppressing social and political environment. Although the counter public sphere did not continue to grow during the Japanese colonization era, it provided a basis of the independence movement and the ideological ground for the democratic movement today.