ABSTRACT
Government communication to the public is in a sense the oldest form of political communication. Looking at the origins of politics, and of the art of rhetoric, one immediately remembers the skills of political communication in the Agora of ancient Greece, notably Athens at its peak. Government bodies have also for long known how to advertise their territories in order to attract tourists, but, until recently, they have never consciously started to organize and rationalize their communication with their citizens. Within the frame of the growth of the centralized states apparatus during the past two centuries, government communication at large has followed.
