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.
30-565: Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University ( CBPBU ) is a public state university in Cooch Behar , West Bengal, India. The university was named after the 19th-century Rajbangshi leader and social reformist Panchanan Barma . The Government of West Bengal established Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University under the West Bengal Act XXI of 2012 and The Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University Act 2012. The first statutes of
60-626: A July 2015 order from the Department of Higher Education, Government of West Bengal , 15 general-degree colleges, mostly from the district of Cooch Behar, were initially affiliated to the University. Professor Indrajit Ray, a former teacher of economics of the University of North Bengal , was the first vice-chancellor , while Professor Shubhrangshu Sekhar Chattopadhyay, originally from the Department of Law, University of Calcutta , joined
90-401: A critical mass of public support" in order to get same-sex marriage passed in the commonwealth. Public relations theory perspectives on publics are situational, per Dewey and Grunig; mass, where a public is simply viewed as a population of individuals; agenda-building, where a public is viewed as a condition of political involvement that is not transitory; and " homo narrans ", where a public
120-455: 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
150-617: A more developed system of measurement and analysis than these other theories. As a result, it is capable of subsuming many other theories. Although the situational theory was well developed by 1984, it has continued to be a growing and developing theory. It has been extended to explain why people join activist groups; internal and external dimensions have been identified for problem recognition, level of involvement, and constraint recognition; and research has been conducted to determine whether information campaigns (which generally are passively processed) can create publics. Among them, some research on
180-403: A number of studies published before and after the textbook, Grunig further developed the theory from an explanation of individual communication behavior to a theory of publics-based in part on John Dewey's book, The Public and Its Problems. Grunig and others who used the theory developed statistical methods through which the theory could be used to segment different kinds of publics and to explain
210-413: A problem), and active publics (who do something about their problem). In public relations and communication theory, a public is distinct from a stakeholder or a market . A public is a subset of the set of stakeholders for an organization, that comprises those people concerned with a specific issue. Whilst a market has an exchange relationship with an organization, and is usually a passive entity that
240-500: A religious or secular curriculum. The promotion of an agenda is commonplace whenever one is in a public environment, but schools have exceptional power in that regard. One non-situational concept of a public is that of Kirk Hallahan, professor at Colorado State University , who defines a public as "a group of people who relate to an organization, who demonstrate varying degrees of activity—passivity, and who might (or might not) interact with others concerning their relationship with
270-642: A result of the intersection of human persons , shared technologies, and their practices. Situational theory of publics The situational theory of publics theorizes that large groups of people can be divided into smaller groups based on the extent to which they are aware of a problem and the extent to which they do something about the problem. For example, some people may begin uninformed and uninvolved; communications to them may be intended to make them aware and engaged. Communications to those who are aware but disengaged may focus on informing them of ways in which they could act. Further classifications are made on
300-465: Is (in the words of Gabriel M. Vasquez, assistant professor in the School of Communication at the University of Houston ) a collection of "individuals that develop a group consciousness around a problematic situation and act to solve the problematic situations" ( Vasquez 1993 , pp. 209). Public schools are often under controversy for their "agenda-building," especially in debates over whether to teach
330-484: Is an affiliating university and has jurisdiction over the colleges of the Cooch Behar district. A total of 15 colleges from Cooch Behar district are affiliated with the university. The University Grants Commission (U.G.C.) accorded recognition to the university in terms of Section 12B of the U.G.C. Act. Public The name "public" originates with the Latin publicus (also poplicus ), from populus , to
SECTION 10
#1732779512051360-434: Is created by the organization, public does not necessarily have an exchange relationship, and is both self-creating and self-organizing. Publics are targeted by public relations efforts. In this, target publics are those publics whose involvement is necessary for achieving organization goals; intervening publics are opinion formers and mediators, who pass information to the target publics; and influentials are publics that
390-715: Is the chief executive officer of the university. The Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University has 19 departments organized into two faculty councils. Thus faculty consists of the departments of Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, and Zoology. This faculty consists of the departments of Bengali, English, Hindi, Sanskrit, History, Political Science, Philosophy, Library and Information Science, Journalism & Mass Communication, Geography, Economics, Education, Law, and Commerce. Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University also offers Certificate Course in Rajbongshi language, and Spanish language. Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University
420-517: Is the conviction that one is capable of executing a behavior required to produce certain outcomes (Witte & Allen, 2000). Constraints can also be physical, such as a lack of access to protective gear. Level of involvement is a measure of how personally and emotionally relevant a problem can be for an individual (Grunig & Hunt, 1984). Involvement increases the likelihood of individuals attending to and comprehending messages (Pavlik, 1988). Dervin (1989) stated that messages will be attended to only if
450-430: Is the extent to which individuals recognize a problem facing them. People do not stop to think about situations unless they perceive that something needs to be done to improve the situation (Grunig & Hunt, 1984, p. 149). Constraint recognition is the extent to which individuals see their behaviors as limited by factors beyond their own control. Constraints can be psychological, such as low self-efficacy ; self-efficacy
480-486: 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 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 ) public as
510-399: The basis to which people are actively seeking or passively encountering ("stumbling into") information about the problem. The situational theory of publics, developed by Professor James E. Grunig in University of Maryland, College Park , defines that publics can be identified and classified in the context to which they are aware of the problem and the extent to which they do something about
540-612: The benefits or dangers associated with them have “taken on some kind of personal reality or usefulness for the individual” (p. 68). In general, persons with high involvement analyze issues more often, prefer messages that contain more and better arguments (Heath, Liao, & Douglas, 1995; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981, 1986), and attain greater knowledge levels (Chaffee & Roser, 1986; Engelberg, Flora, & Nass, 1995). Information seeking can also be called “active communication behavior.” Actively communicating members of publics look for information and try to understand it when they obtain
570-729: The information. Thus, publics whose members seek information become aware publics more often than publics whose members do not communicate or who only process information. Information processing can be called “passive communication behavior.” Passively communicating members of a public will not look for information, but they will often process information that comes to them randomly, that is, without any effort on their part. The situational theory of publics originated in James E. Grunig's journalism monograph titled “The Role of Information in Economic Decision Making” in 1966. That
600-436: The likely effects of communication for each public. Since that time the theory has been used widely in academic studies and to some extent in professional practice and research. The theory also resembles theories of consumer behavior , health communication, media exposure, and political communication popular in other domains of communication research. However, the situational theory of publics contains more variables and has
630-420: The organization". Samuel Mateus's 2011 paper "Public as Social Experience" considered to view the concept by an alternative point of view: the public "is neither a simple audience constituted by media consumers nor just a rational-critical agency of a Public Sphere". He argued "the concept should also be seen in the light of a publicness principle, beyond a critic and manipulative publicity (...). In accordance,
SECTION 20
#1732779512051660-690: The problem. This theory explains when people communicate and when communications aimed at people are most likely to be effective. The concepts in the theory parallel those with the Dewey and Blumer ’s definition of publics. It is possible for a person to be a member of one public with respect to a certain problem, and a member of a different public with respect to a different problem. For example, one person may be attentive and engaged with respect to climate change , but uninformed and uninvolved with respect to racial inequality . A different person may be informed but uninvolved in both problems. Problem recognition
690-445: The public may be regarded as the result of the social activities made by individuals sharing symbolic representations and common emotions in publicness. Seen with lower-case, the concept is a set of subjectivities who look publicly for a feeling of belonging. So, in this perspective, the public is still a fundamental notion to social life although in a different manner in comparison to 18th century Public Sphere's Public. He means above all
720-461: The second variable of the theory, constraint recognition. Together, problem recognition and constraint recognition explained when and why people actively seek information. Later, Grunig added Herbert Krugman's concept of level of involvement to the theory to explain the difference between active communication behavior (information seeking) and passive communication behavior (information processing). In his 1984 textbook, Managing Public Relations, and in
750-511: The situational theory has examined external and internal dimensions of the three independent variables (Grunig & Hon, 1988; Grunig, 1997). If the three concepts (problem recognition, constraint recognition and involvement), are internal (only perceived), then they could be changed by communication, and if they are external (real/actual), then “changes must be made in a person’s environment before his or her perceptions … and communication behavior will change” (Grunig, 1997, p. 25). Although only
780-450: The social textures and configurations where successive layers of social experience are built up." Social publics are groups of people united by common ideas, ideology, or hobbies. Networked publics are social publics which have been socially restructured by the networking of technologies. As such, they are simultaneously both (1) the space constructed through networked technologies and (2) the imagined collective which consequently emerges as
810-465: The target publics turn to for consultation, whose value judgements are influential upon how a target public will judge any public relations material. The public is often targeted especially in regard to political agendas as their vote is necessary in order to further the progression of the cause. As seen in Massachusetts between 2003 and 2004, it was necessary to "win a critical mass of states and
840-651: The university as the second vice-chancellor in January 2015. Presently, Prof. Syamal Roy, originally from the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology , is officiating as the first permanently appointed vice-chancellor. Dr. Debkumar Mukhopadhyay is the first registrar of Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University. Nirupom Bhattacharyya is the (acting) Finance Officer. The Vice-chancellor of the Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University
870-787: The university were approved by the chancellor of the university, the Hon'ble Governor of West Bengal , in the first week of January 2015, and subsequently printed. On 8 April 2015, the University Grants Commission , New Delhi, granted it '2(F)' affiliation. The first statutes were gazetted at the end of April 2015, while the first Executive Council meeting was held on 22 May 2015. The university, which functioned from its camp office at Central Farmers' Hostel, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya , Pundibari , shifted to its permanent campus on Vivekananda Street, near Krishi Bij Khamar, Cooch Behar , on 19 August 2015. Before this, through
900-489: Was the first step in the development of a theory that today is known as the situational theory of publics. That monograph introduced the first variable in the theory, problem recognition, as an explanation of why people sometimes engage in genuine decision-making and sometimes engage in habitual behavioral. In his doctoral dissertation on the economic decision making processes of large landowners in Colombia, Grunig developed
#50949