Who is the public
Who are the Public? Public Sphere, Opinions, Moods & History
who are the public when the term is used
on television and debates by pundits and
politicians what comes to mind a
nebulous mass of bodies with differing
opinions somewhere out there the public
and not who they appear to be it is
instead a concept an idea a symbol in
many ways it doesn't exist and what it
means has a history differs from person
to person and is fundamental to politics
so when were the public born around the
time of the French Revolution as
democracy slowly became more prevalent
across Europe and America the idea of
the people replaced the king as the
source of legitimate Authority the
public replaced subjects this authority
manifested itself primarily in two ways
the right to form and express a
political opinion and the right to vote
elites in positions of power and no
longer jockey to get closer to war
influence the king but instead to what
the people wanted but who knew what they
wanted the burgeoning network of
intellectuals men of letters newspaper
proprietors pamphleteers that debated
and decided gave birth to what Jurgen
Habermas called the public sphere before
polling and mass communication what the
public wanted was largely defined by
this network with reference to history
philosophy and the politics of the time
it's of course was mostly elitist
educated metropolitan white and male the
public was created largely in their
image for the philosopher Thomas Hobbes
writing in the aftermath of the English
Civil War the public were a mass with
unstoppable passions a war of all
against stool which could only be kept
an order by a strong authority Hobbes
his public is symbolized on the famous
front piece of his work Leviathan as a
body with the
King as the head a few decades later
John Locke argued that the people judged
the virtue of our actions by three
standards the divine law the civil law
and the law of opinion how we think
about what's right and wrong is dictated
by each but Locke argued that the last
the law of public opinion exerted the
most pressure on us in other words we
care what other people think
Rousseau thought that this pressure was
so strong that each citizen had a duty
to conform to the general will of the
people I'll access the tocqueville's
similarly wrote that whenever social
conditions are equal
public opinion presses with enormous
weight upon the minds of each individual
it surrounds directs and oppresses him
this circumstance is extraordinarily
favorable to the stability of opinions
in tocqueville's democracy in America
published in 1835 he noted how liberal
politics depended on a public coming
together to pursue a common good he
thought that public opinion in America
was the predominant Authority more so
than the king or the president a few
decades after this the English liberal
philosopher John Stuart Mill warned that
the public could have a stifling effect
on personal freedom he warned of the
tyranny of the majority into the 20th
century Martin heidegger's
phenomenological approach tried to
forget all of this and to conceptualize
the basic categories of human experience
or consciousness he realized that the
other when in an indiscriminate mass
became that they which isn't a group of
single distinct people nor a group with
knowable characteristics but something
else something that becomes an average
for Heidegger our job is to work out how
to stand above the day to be authentic
is to find out how you become more than
average we can start to see then that
the public is constructed by images
words ideas by thinkers elites
politicians it is then a complex idea
but around the middle of the 20th
century something started to change
the universal suffrage became the norm
in most countries around the world even
if for cermets in name only as many
commentators noticed at the time
especially those of the Frankfurt School
like Walter Benjamin the massification
of society dramatically changed almost
everything two things in particular
changed what the public meant first mass
consumer society man the business man
wanted to produce goods that appealed to
the widest possible consumer base and
the advertising wants to create adverts
that did the same second with mass
suffrage politicians simultaneously
wanted to appeal to the widest number of
voters what unites them of this change
to mass society and the need for both
businessmen and politicians to appeal to
the widest net of people they became a
need to find out who the average person
was and what they wanted suddenly
statistics became wildly profitable by
1936 advertising agencies were making
use of surveys Gallup was formed in the
u.s. in 1935 and in Britain two years
after in the 50s politicians began
taking them seriously as a way of
testing policy George Gallup stressed
the social benefits of polling but many
saw his is strictly a business venture
polling was produced on the behalf of
paying clients money influence what was
being asked and the way it was being
asked political polling was commissioned
by newspapers hoping to be able to
predict the future and increase their
bottom line George galloped partner in
Britain Henry Durant complained in his
Diaries that newspapers routinely
interfered in polling setting the
questions and influencing the outcome by
the mid 40s 70% of galip's profits in
Britain came from just six companies an
ad agency Ford and a newspaper amongst
them to what extent then is the public
produced by these elements that an ad
company a newspaper and a mammoth
industrial business make up a chunk is
telling in itself by the sixties many
were comments in the polling not only
reported opinion but shaped it not just
in the questions and methods
in reporting the average gym public
people bandwagon on to conform to
popular opinion
critics like Habermas have argued the
polling can be used as a tool not to
learn but to monitor manipulate and
channel public opinion in many ways
though polling and statistics are
inherently egalitarian hypothetically
each person counts as one in the average
but as soon as you do average the
science the result becomes no one a
mythical person a standardized
stripped-back John Doe sometimes we hear
that this mythical person also has a
mood the public mood the zeitgeist the
spirit of the times
trends and moods can come together to
illuminate this public opinion in
different ways in one s a political
scientist Eric ring Mar asks where the
public moods are similar to individual
moods which he argues differs from
emotions in that they're not directed at
anything we might be in an angry mood
not angry at anything in particular
atmospheres can also affect our moods to
be in the woods at night or at the beach
moods can to nurse or prepare us for
likely events being alert or pensive or
celebratory our public moods the same
then do they attune us prepare us point
us towards certain outcomes or
expectations the public mood during
austerity might be one of anger or
anxiety that can then be directed at
politicians putting pressure on them the
public moon after winning the World Cup
might be one of jubilation whether
you're a football fan or not at the
moment it's often said that the British
public is bored of brexit in this way
ring my point cite the public is a
double within us another person whose
moods and opinions challenge our own
something that we synchronize with or
mirror or
we're confident push against to break
away from today statistics are
everywhere in her book the averaged
American sarah ego reminds us that
before polling there were other ways of
imagining the public literature
photography painting of course in
reality all of these vie for a position
to contribute to the definition of the
public the imagined community George
Gallup himself warned us though that
history is full of examples of the
minority proving rights those who
interpret polls correctly will pay at
least as much attention to the small
percentages as to the large so the
public aren't really out there they're a
linguistic phenomena an image a symbol
of feeling all trans mutating into one
another and competing to become the
correct image of the public and like all
ideas the public can be used and misused
and are usually employed rhetorically to
forward a particular goal and finally if
the public is made up of the average
opinion does it make it just that
average as always what's most important
is to be critical whenever anyone uses
the term the public can't always who
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