What does the term "attentive public" mean?

The term "attentive public" comes from the part of the
field of political science that is concerned with public opinion.  This subfield studies
the way that public opinion is formed and its impact on the political
process.

The "attentive public" for any given political
issue is that segment of the public that pays attention to news about that issue and
cares about what happens with that issue.  This means that there are different
"attentive publics," for example, for issues like gay marriage on the one hand and the
level of tariffs on the other.

The concept of the
"attentive public" is important because the opinions of these people matter more (and
are often more worthy of study) than the opinions of the public as a whole since the
public as a whole may not care much about a given issue.