Reinventing the public intellectual through communication dialogue civic capacity building

Abstract

The definition of a public intellectual and how and what public intellectuals contribute to society has been a matter of extensive critical reflection (see, e.g., Alcoff, 2002; Cummings, 2004; Etzioni & Bowditch, 2006; Kingston & Levine, 2004; Kurzman & Owens, 2002; Posner, 2002). It is predominantly agreed, however, that public intellectuals are academics who put their “scholarship at the service of a broader public” (Kingston, in Kingston & Levine, 2004, p. 19), and in so doing, contribute to public debate and thinking on issues of social, political, and economic concern. There are a range of predominantly writerly ways in which this contribution has traditionally been made, from the public lecture; to the literary book, memoir, or media essay; to the more recent phenomenon of the Internet Weblog, or blog.