PUBLICITY. — The word p. is used in two different senses: 1) as an instrument of public oversight of governmental activities or of the management of large industrial enterprises; 2) as a technique for directing the public’s needs and decisions concerning individuals, political and social institutions, and major commercial firms.
I. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CONTACTS
There is publicity wherever there is a public, that is, in large societies. To understand this properly, one must recall the distinction made by sociologists between primary and secondary contacts. Primary social contacts are those formed within a more or less restricted and defined community (family, neighborhood, municipality) and encompass human life in its entirety. It is these contacts that form the customs and practices of the community. The public, on the other hand, is an unstructured gathering of people (that is, outside the primary community in which they live) confronting a politically or economically organized group, which on the one hand depends on the public, but on which the public in turn also depends. The contact between the public and this group specializing in a social function is not formed within a community of continuous common life, but rather through special acts provoking an attitude of acceptance or rejection, according to the dispositions of the public. These social contacts are called secondary. The principal instrument of such contacts is publicity.At the same time, however, this contact established by publicity has the character of conscious control. The public finds itself confronted by certain persons or by a group on which it depends for its vital needs, but toward whom it nevertheless maintains a certain distance when discussing their actions and forming opinions about them. Customs are not formed by discussing them, but impose themselves slowly and spontaneously through the adaptation of a living community to the conditions of social life. Public opinion (v. PUBBLICA OPINIONE), on the other hand, is always the fruit of a discussion, of taking a position with respect to facts arising from the management of public affairs. Consequently, publicity is an instrument of public opinion. The task of publicity is not to transform habits or customs, but to inform the public or impose a fashion upon it, that is, to direct its needs in the interests of production.
Public control through publicity is therefore realized in two ways. The public demands publicity because it believes that its ability to determine its adherence to the government’s social action depends upon it, and that its demands direct the economic mechanism. In a certain sense, this is true. One cannot govern for long against the will of one’s subjects, and production fails if it does not correspond to the needs of the public. It is therefore through publicity that the public exercises control over its leaders, obtains an improvement in social conditions by exploiting existing ones for its own purposes, and can protest against abuses by officials or politicians; just as it is also through publicity that the public in turn allows itself to be drawn into exceptional sacrifices, as in the case of special contributions and, above all, in wartime.
Public opinion therefore has an incontestable power; but only organized and directed public opinion possesses this power. Consequently, it is extremely important for all those who have dealings with the public to control its opinion and direct it to their own advantage. Thus publicity, which is a means of controlling the administration of those in authority, becomes an instrument for controlling the public itself. The public agrees with these individuals and groups occupying a special social position if publicity is directed by them; but it disagrees when publicity is directed by elements opposed to them.
II. TECHNIQUES OF PUBLICITY
The techniques of publicity may be taken to include all the means that affect the public in part or as a whole. Under modern conditions, primacy belongs to the press (newspapers and periodicals), official or semi-official publications of bodies that have influence over the public, publications of scientific research on the economic and social situation, statistics, official documents justifying the intentions of publicity, posters and simple inscriptions on the streets, radio broadcasting, mass demonstrations, etc.Publicity may be open or clandestine. The means of clandestine publicity are the underground press, the broadcasting of information and notices, the dissemination of news, and even humorous devices circulated among the public, which possess an incredible power, especially under oppressive totalitarian regimes.
