This condition is something that has a very interesting presentation in
Jurgen Habermas' _Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere_. He
outlines a particular shift in the concept of publicness from the
grounded (literally, in physical space) notion of a public to the
mediated notion of publicity.
The desire to convert the non-profit newspaper into a for-profit
enterprise in the early 18th century led to the separation of the tasks
of the editor and the producer. The sale of print space as a result of
this, developed into the advertisement, a form of communication that had
not been meaningfully employed prior to this time. As advertising grew,
the development of 'public relations' efforts directly targeted the
processes of advertising at the (physical) public. "Opinion Managers" he
calls them. Their task, to effect the public opinion through contact
with 'public' individuals in the 'public.' Later capitalism, however,
developed what Habermas calls "publicity workers," people whose task it
is to manufacture public opinion and subjugate it to the financial
efforts of the corporation.
The fundamental difference between "public relations" and "publicity
work" is that the latter becomes self-referential with respect to its
media. Its public is the public of printed public opinion rather than
the physical public; its efforts are targeted at the discourse present in
the press and in law. A somewhat apt contemporary metaphor might be the
"public relations" of the corporate educator -- those individuals who go
around raising "product awareness" (as if...) -- versus the "publicity
work" of the purchase of an entire issue of the London Times to advertise
Windows95. The public addressed in the first is a wandering, mobile
public; the public of the second is a textual (or otherwise)
representation of publicness. A representation, nonetheless, that has
become a surrogate.
I not exactly sure how this may fit into my adhesion metaphor, but as it
stands, it may be useful to address and's question. There is certainly
some possible investigation of the relationship of the 'adhesion' and the
shift of publicness from the subject of PR to the subject of publicity
work.
brian lonsway
......................................................................
j erik jonsson distinguished visiting assistant professor.
rensselaer architecture.
lonsway@rpi.edu.
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