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:

    Some crimes get honor and renown by being committed with more pomp, by a greater number, and in a higher degree of wickedness than others. Hence it is that public robberies, plunderings, and sackings have been looked upon as excellencies and noble achievements, and the seizing of whole countries, however unjustly and barbarously, is dignified with the glorious name of gaining conquests.
    François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)

    If you have a message you want to send to hell, give it to me; I’ll carry it!
    —Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?
    John Ruskin (1819–1900)