New Perspectives on the Evolution of Publics: Digital Stakeholders

Abstract

The decline of the public man of the industrial era and the rise of the digital communities engage publics in new forms of expression by forming and framing networks that replace political communities. Our identity has changed as far as the public man is falling apart in this liquid era, leaving its structured power to dissipated voices of the interactive media. Networking became a political way of being. Publics’ classification differs according to their multiple usages, to their responses and overt behaviors to social stimuli, as well as on the context and situations of interaction. We intend in this essay to define digital publics or audiences as popular and to draw a theoretical perspective on their characteristics and behavior.

Keywords

• digital publics
• public sphere
• public relations
• stakeholders
• conversational publics
• non-publics