I use the term audience rather than the public when describing viewers of a piece of digital content. The term "audience" can refer to the imagined audience, the actual audience, or the potential audience for one's content. But while "potential audience" resembles the vernacular sense of "public," I use "audience" here to mean the actual audience, the people interested in a piece of information who actually view it. Just as media professionals do not use the term "public" for people watching a movie or TV show, we should not use it for digital content. The use of audience also implies performance, because a lot of digital content is created with impression management in mind.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 549