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ailroad, the modern public could only emerge with the nineteenth century. That century might be
characterized, Tarde asserts, not the era of the crowd, as Le Bon would have it, but the time of the
public. Crowds have existed from time immemorial and are, with the family and the horde, the most
ancient of social groups.
Publics are incomparably more complex forms of social groupings and generate quite different
consequences for their members. An individual can belong to several publics simultaneously, Tarde
observes, but only to a single crowd. Because of the restriction of physical proximity, definite limits
are fixed on the maximum size a crowd may attain. Publics, on the other hand, are not circumscribed
in this manner. From these dual factors of overlapping membership and size—for size implies in turn
greater heterogeneity of membership—it follows that publics tend to be more tolerant than crowds.
Correspondingly, nations dominated by crowds tend to be more intolerant than those dominated by
publics. Tarde went on to elaborate a series of interesting observations about the orientations and
styles of publics and crowds which result from various compositional characteristics: sex, age,
religion, and so forth.
But probably the most important single aspect of a public is the opinion to which it gives rise.
“Opinion,” Tarde writes, “is to the modern public what the soul is to the body.” More precisely, it is
“a momentary, more or less logical cluster of judgments which, responding to current problems, is
reproduced many times over in people of the same country, at the same time, in the same society.” 105
In order that this “cluster of judgments” may become true public opinion, however, the members of
the public must develop a consciousness of sharing certain fundamental beliefs. As mass
communications both diffuse beliefs throughout a public and generate a consciousness among its
members that these beliefs are shared, they deserve, Tarde asserts, careful attention. Tarde was one of
the most perceptive commentators in the practically untouched field of mass communications and their
effects, and precisely because of the wide sweep of his remarks in this area they assume additional
interest for contemporary students who are once again seeking to understand media in their broadest
context.
IX. Mass Communication, Social Interaction, and Personal Influence
Examining the impact of technological developments on social relations, Tarde discusses the role of
the telegraph, the telephone, mass-produced books, and even printed invitations and announcements;
but to him the most important single medium was unquestionably the modern mass-circulation
newspaper. Still, the modern newspaper depends on rapid means of communication (the telegraph and
telephone) as well as rapid means of transportation (the railroad) in order to receive news and to
speed distribution of newspapers over a large territory. The newspaper depends, then, on a complex
of technological innovations which are present only in a relatively highly industrialized society; it is
difficult if not impossible to isolate completely the impact of the newspaper from that of innumerable
developments associated with industrialization.
A case in point is the shift in the locus of social control. Prior to industrialization and the
associated development of communication media, integration and social control were functions that
accrued to traditional, fixed social units: the village, the occupational group, the family.
In feudal states such as medieval England or France, each city, each village had its internal dissensions, its own politics and currents
of ideas. . . . There was no general “opinion” but thousands of separate opinions with no continuing ties between them.
This tie was only provided by the book, first of all, and later, with far greater efficacity, by the newspaper. The daily or periodic
press permitted these primary groups of highly similar individuals to form secondary and higher aggregations whose members were