The Individuation of Business, Politics & Citizenship: Communicating Differently
If the journey towards a truer democracy started in the City States of Athens and Sparta and flourished in the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, so it can reach its Digital apogee in the first years of the Twenty First. Now, in an age of Digital empowerment, universal suffrage has never been more far-reaching or more persuasive – the web and all its attendant mechanisms allowing the acceleration of Civic Virtues and Utilitarian good. Business, Politics and Citizenship are entering into a new relationship model – a contract; one that we are calling Public Engagement.
Business, Politics and Citizenship are thus entering into a new relationship model –a contract; one that we are calling Public Engagement.
Ironically, perhaps, given that we have at times been harsh in our judgment of Communications and Marketing, this model will flourish with the support of Communications professionals and a new way of Marketing. Communications companies need progressive actions, too – and this advancement of thinking is the primary focus of Chapters Eleven and Twelve. We believe that effective Public Engagement will further fuel the Citizen Renaissance – and that Communications companies have a central role to play in helping shape a happier and more sustainable society.
We described this Chapter as a journey – looking for a series of smaller, but no less important shifts, within the three great seismic jolts of our time. The individuation of Business, Politics and Citizens will, we believe, allow us to build not just a new Athens but even a new Jerusalem – free of the dark, satanic mills of old; and one that might yet flourish beyond 2050. The end product of the current Citizen Renaissance.
