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:
“In a Kelton church, when a heated argument once began at morning services, a devout old deacon arose from his seat in the ‘amen corner’ and announced he was going to do for the church what the devil had never done—leave it.”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The actions of each dancer were scrutinized with great care and any little mistake noted and remembered. The strain upon a dancer was consequently so great that when a fine dancer died soon after a feast it was said, “The peoples’ looks have killed him.””
—Merle Colby, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)