谁是“公众人物”？——重探“纽约时报诉沙利文案”及其后续案件

李　洋^[1]

内容提要：公众人物术语源于“纽约时报诉沙利文案”及其后续案件。本文从法学方法的角度对相关案件的判决书进行了研究。研究发现，“公众人物”在美国司法判例中并不是一个特征明确的概念，而是一种具有高度价值相关性的类型。作为一种类型，“公众人物”无法通过下定义的方式界定，只能按照一定价值取向进行类型归属。但在中国语境下，公众人物术语的含义及其理论基础都发生了很大变化，其在司法实践中也陷入了困境。

关键词：公众人物　概念　类型

Who Is“Public Figure”?——New York Times and Its Progeny Revisited

Abstract:The term of“public figure”is from New York Times and its progeny.This paper studied verdicts of relevant cases from the perspective of the law.It's found that“public figures”is not an abstract concept，but a kind of type with high value relevance.So it cannot be defined by the way of the definition，only through the overall image of the description to understand.However，the domestic scholars have seriously misunderstood the meaning of the term of public figure.This is the root cause of the public figure theory in China's judicial practice into a difficult situation.

Key words:Public figure　Concept　Type