[...] Communication provides us with the very basis of politics. The public no longer exists as an entity inasmuch as it is a collection of discreet individuals who are serviced. Under the auspices of efficiency, individuals reign triumphant as a corporatist ethic provides the road map of social design. This vision of people and their interests is akin to a post-Fordist regime with customised interests, niche markets, and the narrowing and increasing specification of issues which speak to a narrowcast rather than broadcast mentality. The public becomems, then, a questionable claim, little more than a holdover annoyance of second wave politics, rather than a leading force in the new politics. In fact, the tone of the new private idealism obviates the need for the public altogether. we are left with a new sense of the political, an individualistic populism suffused with elite ideals. [...]