Public

Public

In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the Öffentlichkeit or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science, psychology, marketing, and advertising. In public relations and communication science, it is one of the more ambiguous concepts in the field. Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, it has suffered in more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder.

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Famous quotes containing the word public:

    Compare ... the cinema with theatre. Both are dramatic arts. Theatre brings actors before a public and every night during the season they re-enact the same drama. Deep in the nature of theatre is a sense of ritual. The cinema, by contrast, transports its audience individually, singly, out of the theatre towards the unknown.
    John Berger (b. 1926)

    The principal saloon was the Howlin’ Wilderness, an immense log cabin with a log fire always burning in the huge fireplace, where so many fights broke out that the common saying was, “We will have a man for breakfast tomorrow.”
    —For the State of California, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    First in booze, first in shoes, and last in the American League.
    —Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)