public

…of the notion of a public that is in possession of its own “opinion” in relation to matters of common concern became an increasingly prevalent way of thinking about civil society, particularly in connection with the emergence of forums and spaces where the free exchange of opinions was observable—newspapers, coffeehouses,…

Crowd behavior and such related forms as fads and panics are often contrasted with “publics,” in which more of an attitude of deliberation prevails. The most important distinction between crowds and publics is that people in the public recognize that there is…