【正文】 rimary link in terms of media and nonmedia exposures. The role of nonmedia factors is very slight in the case of many relay operators, while it is certain to be significant in accounting for the primary observer. Attention Aggregates and Publics It should be pointed out that everyone is not a member of the world public, even though he belongs to some extent to the world attention aggregate. To belong to an attention aggregate it is only necessary to have mon symbols of reference. Everyone who has a symbol of reference for New York, North America, the western hemisphere, or the globe is a member respectively of the attention aggregate of New York, North America, the western hemisphere, the globe. To be a member of the New York public, however, it is essential to make demands for public action in New York, or expressly affecting New York. The public of the United States, for instance, is not confined to residents or citizens, since noncitizens who live beyond the frontier may try to influence American politics. Conversely, everyone who lives in the United States is not a member of the American public, since something more than passive attention is necessary. An individual passes from an attention aggregate to the public when he begins to expect that what he wants can affect public policy.Sentiment Groups and Publics A further limitation must be taken into account before we can correctly classify a specific person or group as part of a public (p. 96). The demands made regarding public policy must be debatable. The world public is relatively weak and undeveloped, partly because it is typically kept subordinate to sentiment areas in which no debate is permitted on policy matters. During a war or war crisis, for instance, the inhabitants of a region are overwhelmingly mitted to impose certain policies on others. Since the oute of the conflict depends on violence, and not debate, there is no public under such conditions. There is a network of sentiment groups that act as crowds, hence tolerate no dissent. From the foregoing analysis it is clear that there are attention, public, and sentiment areas of many degrees of inclusiveness in world politics. These areas are interrelated with the structural and functional features of world society, and especially of world power. It is evident, for instance, that the strongest powers tend to be included in the same attention area, since their ruling elites focus on one another as the source of great potential threat. The strongest powers usually pay proportionately less attention to the weaker powers than the weaker powers pay to them, since stronger powers are typically more important sources of threat, or of protection, for weaker powers than the weaker powers are for the stronger.The attention structure within a state is a valuable index of the degree of state integration. When the ruling classes fear the masses, the rulers do not share their picture of reality with the rank and file. When the reality picture of kings, presidents, and cabinets is not permitted to circulate through the state as a whole, the degree of discrepancy shows the extent to which the ruling groups assume that their power depends on distortion. Or, to express the matter another way, if the truth is not shared, the ruling elements expect internal conflict, rather than harmonious adjustment to the external environment of the state (p. 97). Hence the channels of munication are controlled in the hope of organizing the attention of the munity at large in such a way that only responses will be forthing which are deemed favorable to the power position of the ruling classes. The Principle of Equivalent Enlightenment It is often said in democratic theory that rational public opinion depends upon enlightenment. There is, however, much ambiguity about the nature of enlightenment, and the term is often made equivalent to perfect knowledge. A more modest and immediate conception is not perfect but equivalent enlightenment. The attention structure of the fulltime specialist on a given policy will be more elaborate and refined than that of the layman. That this difference will always exist, we must take for granted. Nevertheless, it is quite possible for the specialist and the layman to agree on the broad outlines of reality. A workable goal of democratic society is equivalent enlightenment as between expert, leader, and layman. Expert, leader, and layman can have the same gross estimate of major population trends of the world. They can share the same general view of the likelihood of war. It is by no means fantastic to imagine that the controllers of mass media of munication will take the lead in bringing about a high degree of equivalence throughout society between the layman39。s picture of significant relationships, and the picture of the expert and the leader (p. 98). Summary The munication process in society performs three functions: (a) surveillance of the environment, disclosing threats and opportunities affecting the value position of the munity and of the ponent parts within it。 (b) correlation of the ponents of society in making a response to the environment。 (c) transmission of the social inheritance. In general, biological equivalents can be found in human and animal associations, and within the economy of a single organism.In society, the munication process reveals special characteristics when the ruling element is afraid of the internal as well as the external environment. In gauging the efficiency of munication in any given context, it is necessary to take into account the values at stake, and the identity of the group whose position is being examined. In democratic societies, rational choices depend on enlightenment, which in turn depends upon munication。 and especially upon the equivalence of attention among leaders, experts, and rank and file. 11