Public
Scholars have long argued over the concept public within "public opinion". The use of "public" and "the public" betrays multiple competing meanings. There are three meanings of public. One meaning is the legal sense of public that focuses on openness. For example, a public place or path. A second meaning for the term emphasizes public rights. Lastly, within the phrase public opinion, public is said to have a related but different definition. Public, in this sense, could be characterized as social psychology. Scholars have marveled in amazement at the power public opinion has in making regulations, norms, and moral rules triumph over the individual self without ever troubling legislators governments or courts for assistance.
Read more about this topic: Spiral Of Silence
Famous quotes containing the word public:
“The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“... until both employers’ and workers’ groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainly bay the moon about “ignorant” and “unfair” public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Bath twice a day to be really clean, once a day to be passably clean, once a week to avoid being a public menace.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)