The New Public

Professional specialists have come to dominate public communication, and the modern public of the Enlightenment has been replaced by a "New Public", subject to mass persuasion through systematic advertising, lobbying, and other forms of media manipulation. Leon Mayhew examines this sociological development in terms of discourse and social influence, offering an original theory that bridges Talcott Parsons and JÜrgen Habermas. He concludes that the present social order is unstable because good-faith, two-way discourse has been undermined.