IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014 - 57

main or most highly valued purpose of communication [34]. In the
twenty-first century, the message
influencing communicative strategy is considered outdated, even
within such traditional areas of its
application as public relations and
political discourse.

space, dialogical frames are not
always visible. Online identities are fragmented, multiple, and
dynamic. Referential moves are
characterized by uncertainty, due
to the complex interplay between
virtual and real ontological and
social contexts.

Interaction

Functions

The essence of authentic human
communication dwells in responding to the other. The view of communication as a social interaction
is grounded within the concept of
language as having a dialogical
and ideological nature rather than
the concept of language as a system
of signs characterized by structural
relationships between its elements
[35]. According to the interactionist paradigm, the unit of communication is utterance, not sentence.
Isolated, well-formed sentences
are linguistic constructs and hold
meaning only for grammarians
[36]. The utterance is time- and
situation-concrete, ontologically
anchored. Often, utterance is more
about showing than saying; it is a
verbal expression that incorporates
kinesic and paralinguistic gestures.
Utterance is embedded in a broader
context of social interaction, which
involves physical movements and
conventionalized
interpersonal
rituals. The context is an inherent
aspect of communicated meaning.
Therefore, Goffman [36] argues,
the analysis of communication
cannot be reduced to an analysis of
verbal expressions only. It should
involve an analysis of ontological
"coordinates," marks of the social
setting of talk, the dynamics of referential moves, and the change of
dialogical frames. Interruptions,
self-interruptions, non-answering,
overlapping, restarting, and so on,
should not be neglected and dismissed as "noise."
The Internet has made the interactional aspect of communication
particularly prominent, while creating new challenges for analysts.
Within a mediated communicative

An understanding of human communication is incomplete without an analysis of its functions in
the system of social reproduction.
Within the functionalist perspective, the focus is on the forms of
communication (interpersonal,
mass media, and computer/Internet-mediated) and their capacity
to serve individual and societal
goals. On the societal level, the
goals relate to the transmission of
sociocultural norms and values
and to imposing and maintaining
social order [20]. On the individual
level, the goals are: awareness of
immediate and broader environments; consumption of services;
participation in political and recreational activities; connection to
community systems and areas of
common interests; maintaining
relationships; sharing experience
and interaction rules; consensus
building; conflict resolution; coordination of crisis-related activities;
and adaptation to changing environments [37].
The communication forms'
capacity to serve individual and
societal goals depends on the type
of human association. The most
general types of human association
are Gemeinschaft (community) and
Gesellschaft (society) [38]. The former is based on "mechanical" solidarity (kinship, neighborhood, or
spiritual proximity), while the latter is based on "organic" solidarity
that emerges as a result of the division of labor and the primacy of
the individual [39]. In communitytype associations, the spread of
information and influence is characterized by the decisive role of
social networks and interpersonal

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SPRING 2014

communication. In society-type
associations, the major role is
played by mediated forms of communication. For example, mass
media has been used in modern
industrial society as a mechanism of imposing social order via
persuasion and propaganda [20].
However, according to the famous
two-step model of communication
[40], the mass media effects also
depend on the individual's social
network (family, friends) and on
the community's opinion leaders.
In the postmodern society, the distinction between the two types of
human association is becoming
blurred even further, and various
forms of quasi-Gemeinschaft communities are emerging due to the
Internet. As predicted by McLuhan [41], the Internet has become
a locus of production and consumption of goods and services,
formation of social identities, collaboration, and political action.

Representation
Human communication involves
using a medium of meaning representation (oral, written, visual, multimodal) and a channel of medium
transmission (interpersonal, mass
media, computer-mediated). Interpersonal, mass, and mediated
communication differ in terms of
sensory authenticity, geographic
range, feedback, interactivity, control over the topic and communication act, reliance on hardware, and
reliance on software skills [37]. For
example, interpersonal communication is particularly reliant on
"software skills," such as knowledge of language and social protocols. In the beginning of the Internet
age, mediated communication was
highly dependent on hardware and
required some computer literacy.
Within online communities, new
and rapidly changing skills are
required, including knowledge of
national languages' electronic variants and online communities' cultural and communicative protocols.
The representation perspective on
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2014