Public

[3] Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, and suffered more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder.

[4] The name "public" originates with the Latin publicus (also poplicus), from populus, to the English word 'populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the people") in association with some matter of common interest.

A public is a subset of the set of stakeholders for an organization, that comprises those people concerned with a specific issue.

[5][4] Public schools are often under controversy for their "agenda-building," especially in debates over whether to teach a religious or secular curriculum.

[10] The promotion of an agenda is commonplace whenever one is in a public environment, but schools have exceptional power in that regard.

One non-situational concept of a public is that of Kirk Hallahan, professor at Colorado State University, who defines a public as "a group of people who relate to an organization, who demonstrate varying degrees of activity—passivity, and who might (or might not) interact with others concerning their relationship with the organization".