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:
“Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do whatever the Government and public opinion allow them to do.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“I am not building here a statue to erect at the town crossroads, or in a church or a public square.... This is for a nook in a library, and to amuse a neighbor, a relative, a friend, who may take pleasure in associating and conversing with me.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)