This article examines the way in which academic research, which has developed considerably since the eighties, has taken into account and adapted the proposals put forward by Paul Beaud, not only in La Soci?t? de connivence, published in 1984, but also in his 1985 PhD thesis entitled M?dias, m?siations et m?diateurs dans la soci?t? industrielle. This work is far less known but is rich in research proposals. More than twenty years after these two publications, it seems that Paul Beaud's ideas have lost none of their heuristic value and theoretical ambition.