Public
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
In Community and the Politics of Place Daniel Kemmis defines “public” as being “of the people”(Kemmis 4.) He makes the distinction that any random collection of people is not “the people” and that in order for there to be a public there must be a constituted group of people who define themselves. A single individual can never become public unto themselves and an individual life when kept individual will remain private. Kemmis also indicates that the public in a physical sense acts as a “thing” (that is res publica) or a common ground to group individuals together while still maintaining rules and space between them, however the realm of public space is now disappearing with the loss of involvement in public activities such as voting, leading to a loss of vitality in the public areas of our lives.
Within the context of the internet the term “public” has a variety of implications. While the web is made up of many “public” forums where users can post and share ideas at their own discretion the very structure of the internet is inherently private. While the internet was developed by a public institute (The Department of Defense) it has been privatized for individual users and with that privatization there are now an unlimited number of private companies that have control of the content of the service they provide. User agreements and licenses are standard procedure. Unlike constitutions or founding documents that create an agreement between all users or member to each other these documents only provide an agreement between user and provider, keeping their services private and limited to an individual experience as opposed to a collective co-op.
