Global Comm. section 2 (3 of 3)

Pamplona, February 2010 Paolo Volonté - Politecnico di Milano 1

Communication in the Era of Globalization


Communication in the Era of Globalization

Today:Forms of Communication

Objects as media


Forms of communication

a) The first and most basic way of communication is to modify the surrounding world, the life-context of the receiver, the situation s/he is living in.








b) A more elaborated way of communication is by modifying one’s own behaviour in the presence of the addressee of the communication.




c) It is possible to communicate not only by modifying our visual behaviour in the presence of the addressee, but even by modifying our acoustic behaviour.



d) As the most elaborated way of communication, it is possible to communicate through the release of specific “communicative” sounds. This is called “pronouncement” or “utterance”. In this case a code is needed: verbal communication, language.



Codes, including natural language, are nothing but means to standardize a little bit the sender’s and receiver’s experiences, aiming at making more likely the agreement between the actual signification produced by the receiver and the one expected by the sender.



All three-dimensional objects, are by their very nature active means of communication. They are media.



• Social stratification has lost its power to organize and to order the daily lives of people

• Urbanization and population growth brought to a world where strangers are easier to encounter than neighbors

• In the interaction with a stranger non-verbal means of communication become more suitable than the verbal ones

• Global communications and global migrations have definitely enriched our cultural landscape with meanings that we don’t manage

In modern societies

Objects as media



• The system of industrial production has responded by multiplying the types ob objects available to the consumer

• All the three-dimensional objects in our world that are in some way used by human beings inevitably act as media of social communication in everyday life

In modern societies

Objects as media


Objects as media do have an “immaterial content”. But it does not consist – as economists state – in the intellectual work needed to produce them. On the contrary, it consists in their faculty of shaping relationships.

Objects as media



Paolo VolontéSociologia dei processi culturali

Politecnico di [email protected]

http://paolovolonte.wordpress.com

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Global Comm. section 2 (3 of 3)