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.
The name "public" originates with the Latin publicus (also poplicus), from populus, and in general denotes some mass population ("the people") in association with some matter of common interest. So in political science and history, a public is a population of individuals in association with civic affairs, or affairs of office or state. In social psychology, marketing, and public relations, a public has a more situational definition.John Dewey defined (Dewey 1927) a public as a group of people who, in facing a similar problem, recognize it and organize themselves to address it. Dewey's definition of a public is thus situational: people organized about a situation. Built upon this situational definition of a public is the situational theory of publics by James E. Grunig (Grunig 1983), which talks of nonpublics (who have no problem), latent publics (who have a problem), aware publics (who recognize that they have a problem), and active publics (who do something about their problem).
Public is the third album (the first on a major label) by Emm Gryner, released in 1998.
The album, released on Mercury Records, was not a strong seller, and Gryner was subsequently dropped from the label after Mercury was acquired by Universal Music. She revived her own independent label, Dead Daisy Records, for her next release, Science Fair, which ironically sold significantly more copies than Public despite its more limited distribution and marketing.
In 2006, Gryner released PVT, a limited edition album featuring rerecorded versions of songs from Public. PVT was initially released only as a bonus disc with preordered copies of Gryner's 2006 album The Summer of High Hopes. It was later offered as a separate purchase.
In the public eye theyÅ e fabricated you.
Chose your selling points to sell.
Became an object they can hate or pursue.
But no one asked just how you felt.
But donÅ you think I feel?
DonÅ you think IÅ real?
Are you so dull that you donÅ have a clue?
And I donÅ think itÅ right, this invasion in my life.
No, one day youÅ l feel what IÅ going through.
In the public eye youÅ e always on stage.
TheyÅ e magnified your every move.
Free to roam around in your golden cage.
But you better watch just what you do.
And youÅ e bound by their chains,
youÅ e not allowed to change.
In the public eye.
And youÅ e living a life you must defend in the public eye.
In this world you exchange the right to know whoÅ your real friend
and why itÅ a loserÅ game that I canÅ win,
I can only try.