l influence described, there will be no
such complete rapport and no such complete domination of the individual
by the group as exists in a herd or a crowd in a state of excitement,
but there will be sufficient community of interest to insure a common
understanding. A public is, in fact, organized on the basis of a
universe of discourse, and within the limits of this universe of
discourse, language, statements of fact, news will have, for all
practical purposes, the same meanings. It is this circle of mutual
influence within which there is a universe of discourse that defines the
limits of the public.

A public like the crowd is not to be conceived as a formal organization
like a parliament or even a public meeting. It is always the widest area
over which there is conscious participation and consensus in the
formation of public opinion. The public has not only a circumference,
but it has a center. Within the area within which there is
participation and consensus there is always a focus of attention around
which the opinions of the individuals which compose the public seem to
revolve. This focus of attention, under ordinary circumstances, is
constantly shifting. The shifts of attention of the public constitute
what is meant by the changes in public opinion. When these changes take
a definite direction and have or seem to have a definite goal, we call
the phenomenon a social movement. If it were possible to plot this
movement in the form of maps and graphs, it would be possible to show
movement in two dimensions. There would be, for example, a movement in
space. The focus of public opinion, the point namely at which there is
the greatest "intensity" of opinion, tends to move from one part of the
country to another.[253] In America these movements, for reasons that
could perhaps be explained historically, are likely to be along the
meridians, east and west, rather than north and south. In the course of
this geographical movement of public opinion, however, we are likely to
observe changes in intensity and changes in direction (devagation).

Changes in intensity seem to be in direct proportion to the
area over which opinion on a given issue may be said to exist.
In minorities opinion is uniformly more intense than it is in
majorities and this is what gives minorities so much greater
influence in proportion to their numbers than majorities. While
changes in intensity have a definite relation to