
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, and suffered 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.
Etymology and definitions
The name "public" originates with the
Latin ''
publicus Publicus may refer to :
*The Ager publicus is the Latin language name for the public land of the Roman Republic and Empire.
*Cursus publicus
The ''cursus publicus'' (Latin: "the public way"; grc, δημόσιος δρόμος, ''dēmósio ...
'' (also ''
poplicus''), from ''
populus
''Populus'' is a genus of 25–30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar (), aspen, and cottonwood.
The we ...
'', to the English word '
populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the people") in association with some matter of common interest. So in political science and hist