Publicity is public attention or awareness, especially the kind that comes from media coverage or promotional efforts. When a new movie gets a lot of publicity, newspapers write about it, TV shows discuss it, and people start talking about it everywhere. When a restaurant opens and the owner sends press releases to local news outlets, she's seeking publicity to attract customers.

The word often appears in phrases like good publicity and bad publicity. A scientist who discovers something important receives good publicity when news organizations share the story. A company faces bad publicity when customers complain publicly about defective products. Some people say “there's no such thing as bad publicity,” meaning that even negative attention can be valuable because it makes people aware of something, though this isn't always true.

Publicity differs from advertising in an important way: advertising is attention you pay for, while publicity is attention you earn or attract. If a local business buys a newspaper ad, that's advertising. If a reporter writes a story about that business because it's interesting or newsworthy, that's publicity.

People who work in publicity, called publicists, help individuals and organizations get positive media attention. They might arrange interviews, write press releases, or organize events that journalists will want to cover.