Chapter 4 What the Public Is Not
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Walter Lippmann’s
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It is merely the persons who are interested in an affair and can affect it only by supporting or opposing the actors.”
Note:IL PUBBLICO PER WL...GLI ACTORS SONO GLI ESPERTI
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There are many publics, each of them embedded in a particular culture and circumstance.
Note:TANTI PUBBLICI
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characterize this heterogeneous beast.
Note:IL PROBLEMA DELL ANALISTA
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that public, once synonymous with “the audience,” is no longer silent,
Note:OGGI...PUBBLICO VOCIFERANTE
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leaped onstage and become a leading actor
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Rather than assert what the public is, I explain what the public is not.
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IL METODO MIGLIORE
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The Public Is Not the People, But Likes To Pretend That It Is
Note:tttttttttttttt PRIMO SCARTO
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Egyptian public took to the streets in enormous numbers demanding the overthrow
Note:IL PUBBLICO DELLE PRIMAVERE
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On July 3, the Egyptian military ousted Morsi,
Note:ESERCITO
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They claimed to be abiding by the will of the people.
Note:GENTE E PUBBLICO
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similar argument was put forward by Mohamed ElBaradei, the new prime minister
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the central doctrine of liberal democracy: the people were sovereign.
Note:SOVRANITÀ
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ElBaradei identified the protesting public with the Egyptian people.
Note:IDENTIFICAZIONE
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the fractured condition of the Egyptian public.
Note:IL PROB
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Which could be identified with the Egyptian people?
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Morsi, unlike Mubarak, had been voted
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20 million protesters on the streets, 22 million signatures petitioning Morsi to step down,
Note:LA PROT. Vs L ELETTO
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July events in Egypt were a revolution or a coup.
Note:IL DUBBIO
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the public is composed of those self-selected persons interested in the affair,
Note:LA DIFF CON LA GENTE
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no legitimate authority
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lacks the structure to enforce
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It can only express an opinion,
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people are an abstraction of political philosophy.
Note:GENTE
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Its authority has always been based on persuasion rather than law.
Note:PUBBLICO
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it is precisely the overflow of the public’s activity beyond the channels of democratic procedures
Note:L IMPONDERABILE DI OGGI
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Because the public was clueless, the political weight of its opinion was likely to be misguided or manipulated by cunning insiders.
Note:OPINIONE ELITISTA WL
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The “Occupy” groups in the US, with tiny numbers on the street compared to Egypt’s protesters, still claimed to represent the “99 percent”
Note:LA PRETESA
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result, given the mutable nature of the public, can only be chaos.
Note:SE USCIAMO DAL FORMALISMO E CREDIAMO NELL ESISTENZA DI UN POPOLO
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The Public Is Not the Masses, But Was Once Buried Alive Under Them
Note:ttttttt SECONDO SCARTO
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in pre-industrial society ordinary people lived “dispersed.”
Note:ERA SENZA MASSE
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ideology of the time, liberal democracy, preached the universal equality of man and citizen.
Note:DOPO... UGUAGLIANZA E MASA
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industry needed mass
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The system was top-down, intrusive, and impersonal,
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The industrial age was Taylorist to the core.
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More precisely: the masses impersonated the public for the benefit of the hierarchy,
Note:IDENTIFICAZ
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mass movements whose prestige crested just before World War II – laborists, anarchists, syndicalists, fascists, socialists, national socialists, communists.
Note:MOVIMENTI
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sought to reduce political action to pure mechanics.
Note:IL TENTATIVO
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racial Darwinism for the Nazis,
Note:PSEUDOSCIENZE
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scientific materialism” for Marxist-Leninists.
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control of the masses.
Note:QUEL CHE CONTA
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no space for a free-standing public.
Note:PASSIVITÀ
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TV viewers in the 1950s, for example, could only react as consumers to three channels,
Note:DIMINUITA REATTIVITÀ
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They couldn’t act.
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The same was true of the industrial economy: mass producers
Note:NO SCELTA
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Our age is characterized by a radical shift along this spectrum:
Note:OGGI MOLTA DIFFERENZA
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TV viewers became YouTube posters.
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advocates for personally meaningful causes,
Note:TRASF DEI MOVIMENTI
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“We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page.
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Lippmann and Dewey got the future wrong:
Note:L ERRORE
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they failed to foresee the advent of a personalized information
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The Public Is Not the Crowd, But the Two Are in a Relationship (It’s Complicated)
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it was the crowds which brought down the Ben Ali
Note:POSSIBILE INTERPRET. DeLLE PRIMAVERE
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The public, we know, is composed of private persons welded together by a shared point of reference:
Note:RIPETOAMO DEFIN
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Members of the public tend to be dispersed,
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A crowd, on the contrary, is always manifest, and capable of great physical destructiveness and ferocity.
Note:FISICITÀ DELLA FOLLA
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In direct democracies like ancient Athens, it could be said to represent the will of the sovereign people.
Note:ATENE... COINCIDENZA
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The public mediates the transformation of the crowd into a symbolic force.
Note:SIMBOLO
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Thus Hitler’s rallies at Nuremberg and Stalin’s May Day parades.
Note:FOLLE ORG
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Cuba’s Castro regime on festive occasions still herds the masses to bask in their approval,
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In the new millenium, the public returned with a vengeance,
Note:FOLLA E VENDETTA
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The unpredictability of the crowd mirrored the public’s networked structure and sectarian temper.
IMPREVEDIBILITÀ