Public interest

In social science and economics, public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society.[1] While it has earlier philosophical roots and is considered to be at the core of democratic theories of government, often paired with two other concepts, convenience and necessity, it first became explicitly intergrtaed into governance instruments in the early part of the 20th century. The public interest was rapidly adopted and popularised by human rights lawyers in the 1960's and has since been incorporated into other fields such as journalism and technology.

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (August 2019)

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