6.6.7. Communication Work
Communication work is a particular form of work that creates information (see figure 6.1). All work is based on a dialectic of the body and the brain, physical activity and mental activity. But we can distinguish between work that is predominantly physical and work that is predominantly cognitive and communicative. Physical work creates tangible products that you can touch and feel. Information is in contrast an intangible product that stores and communicates meaning and represents something else for which it stands as a symbol. Communication work is a social production process that creates information and information technologies. Information is often produced, disseminated and received by information technologies such as the networked computer. The production of these physical information technologies is also part of communication work, but is physical work. A subset of physical work is communication work that creates information technologies. In contrast, information work is mental communication work that produces social meaning. Physical work and information work are two connected aspects of communication work – they create communications and communication.
Beyond Habermas: Rethinking Critical Theories of Communication
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