A word that will not sit still

Publicness is hard to define. East and West do not use the word the same way, and even inside one language the meaning slips. In economics and administration the market is often called private, while philosophy may treat the same space as public. A wide reading, close to Rawls, treats public reason as the reason of free and equal citizens. A narrow reading treats publicness as government and public agencies.

Manuel Castells put the spread of networks at the core of the information society: open and dynamic, against the closed borders of industrial organization. That shift remakes the economy, labour and politics, and therefore remakes publicness, which in turn changes how firms handle financial administration — who bears the burden, and why government exists at all.

The site of meaning, and a contradiction

In political science the contrast is public interest against private interest. In broadcasting, truth, diversity and usefulness matter because broadcasting is treated as a public good. In medicine, health services are not to be run for profit alone. In administration, publicness is an attitude toward the public interest as the average interest of people living together. Following Fraser and Habermas as the essay presents them, the public is the site where social meaning is generated, contested and circulated, a place of hegemony and culture, and of an effort at 'optimal communication.'

Positive views include a dislike of concentrated private power, and a universal or cosmopolitan hope. Negative views associate publicness with regulation, with a less efficient public sector, with distrust of bureaucrats, and with the claim that no comprehensive public authority can guide a complex society. The essay notices a contradiction: conservatives do not always prefer the private, and it cites opposition to homosexuality, cohabitation and abortion. The core of publicness is often governmental — defense and policing — yet public power loses its publicness when it is used to oppress. Even privately owned firms have publicness in their management. The same Korean report, at fuller length, is on CampusDown.

Sources

1. Castells on the network society and publicness. Rawls on public reason. Fraser and Habermas as the essay presents them: the public as a site of meaning, contest and circulation. Fields: political science, broadcasting as a public good, medicine, administration. Positive and negative views of publicness, including new public management. Public versus private administration; publicness inside privately owned firms. No later official fiscal figures.

Last updated: 14 November 2026