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- Title
The public realm: Where Americans can address their concerns.
- Authors
Harwood, Richard C.
- Abstract
This article discusses the importance for public institutions in the U.S. to engage the public realm--the very arena they were created to serve. The author argues that to truly explore their common dilemmas and creative effective public responses, public institutions need fully to engage the public realm. Public institutions such as government agencies, newspapers, and foundations will need to change if they are to address real concerns of U.S. citizens. They must embrace fundamentally new notions of the public realm and what it means to engage it. Throughout the nation public institutions have adopted a host of techniques to connect with the public including e-mail, 1-800 telephone numbers, overnight polls, focus groups, and town meetings. Institutions use these practices to demonstrate that they are being responsive to an angry public that demands to be heard; that they are seeking to solve problems at a time when people are increasingly anxious about the challenges before them; and that they are employing the vast opportunities that technology offers to connect them with one another. The economic, moral, and political dilemmas faced by U.S. citizens each day persist. Many of these dilemmas demand public responses.
- Subjects
UNITED States; PUBLIC institutions; GOVERNMENT agencies; NEWSPAPERS; CHARITABLE uses, trusts, &; foundations; POLITICAL participation; PRACTICAL politics; POLITICAL ethics
- Publication
Social Policy, 1995, Vol 26, Issue 1, p40
- ISSN
0037-7783
- Publication type
Article