Determining the conduct of human affairs. Censorship laws, secrecy and security laws, slander and libel laws, laws governing political and commercial speech, laws governing ownership of and access to communication media, etc. Those in power may wish to control ideas, particularly any they find threatening. Free speech and a free press ensure that all relevant arguments are voiced and all relevant information is known and thus helps maintain the quality of public debate and decision about the conduct of human affairs. Different means empower different classes, limiting or allowing their participation in debate on the conduct of human affairs.
Technological advances create possibilities for constraining or enabling participation.
Economic conditions discourage or encourage different kinds and degrees of involvement. Philosophy and aristocracy or rhetoric and democracy. Not surprisingly growing interest in rhetoric coincides with the birth of democracy in Athens. Plato prefers the wise rule of a steadfast philosopher king who knows the truth, whose rhetoric always serves it. Only fragments of the works of the sophist rhetoricians remain.