This article first identifies the various inter-subjective forms of communication and the types of social relations correlated with them. It then considers the communicational and especially media 'triangles'? which enable those who participate in them to experience a community of interest and attention in relation to an outside reference. In a complex society, the socially relevant references that make it possible to 'do society'? are produced primarily by the mechanisms of joint attention constituted by the media. But by definition such references are distant from their media 'users'?, who have access to them only indirectly, via mediators from whose work of selection, framing and validation they are largely excluded. The author analyses the implications of this structural 'deference'?.