The works of Lev Vygotsky, Valentin Vološinov, Ferruccio Rossi-Landi, Raymond Williams are important foundations for a dialectical critical theory of communication. They give some insights into the dialectical relations between structures/agency, technology/practices, reflection/production, sociality/individuality, externalisation/internationalisation, economy/culture that are crucial for such a theory. In the final section, I will try to bring together some of these insights.
6.6. Towards a Dialectical Critical Theory of Communication
6.6.1. What is Communication?
Communication is the social production of meaning in society. It is the social process of shared and joint meaning-making with the help of symbol production and symbolic interaction. All social relations are communicative. Humans via communication together make sense of the world, i.e. of nature, society and each other. Not all behaviour is communicative. Non-social behaviour is not communicative. Singing alone in your bathtub while taking a shower and thinking about the world is a form of self-reflection, self-understanding and symbol production, but it is not communication because it lacks a social context. Other than the professional singer, in the shower you only sing for yourself, not for others. If, however, someone listens and finds the quality of your singing appalling and complains to you (‘Stop making such horrible noises while showering’), then your individual singing turns into communicative social action.
The boundary between the individual and the social is also the boundary between non-communication (behaviour) and communication. Behaviour and communication are not separate, but there is a dialectic of the individual and the social: the individual is the social being that can only individualise himself/ herself in relations to others. The social is the productive relation between individuals that produces and reproduces structures in society and social systems. The individual/social dialectic is also one between cognitive information and social information. The individual constantly produces and reproduces cognitive information that is a foundation of communication, in which social information is jointly co-constructed. Social information enables and constrains an individual’s information and cognition.
6.6.2. Structure and Agency
Communication is based on a structure/agency-dialectic. It is neither a mechanic reflection of the world nor an isolated individual behaviour. Meaningful information is not simply a passive cognitive resource that is expressed and transmitted. It is also not simply a copy of outside reality. Communication is, as Vološinov says, a dialectic of the utterance of inner signs (cognitive/ individual information) in processes of externalisation that share information in a social environment and the introspection of outer signs (social information) that internalise social information and transform individual information. Communication is a meaningful, productive and creative social activity.
Beyond Habermas: Rethinking Critical Theories of Communication
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