Public: A Network of Relationships

Abstract

This essay makes sense of rhetorical scholarship on publics by interpreting publics as networks of relationships. I begin by considering how the concept of relationship has circulated as a prominent theme in the foundational scholarship on which contemporary scholars often draw. I then discuss how scholarship on multiple public spheres and counterpublics explores advocates’ efforts to reconstruct relationships in pursuit of inclusion, justice, and equality. I conclude by explicating neoliberal publics as a prominent contemporary challenge to robust relationships and critical public engagement. Against contemporary scholarship and practice that emphasizes fluidity, diversity, and transformation, a neoliberal public asserts its own universality, claiming that market relations represent an intrinsic, common orientation to public engagement and that markets treat everyone the same.

Keywords:

• counterpublic
• multiplicity
• neoliberalism
• public engagement