What is communication?

Communication is the process by which an individual attempts to explicate wishes and desires to an other. It is typically thought of, especially in the postmodern world, as the means by which information is sent and received between persons, ( or commonly as it is thought of between computers or other technologies that support and create digital information). It is largely believed that society cannot sustain itself without the means of communication, and indeed the society which we are apart of (that is sophisticated society), there could not be "progress" without the process of communication.
It is important though, especially when we begin to deconstruct mass communication and its implications and motives, that we realize that communication (language) does not, and cannot necessarily convey meanings of innate "truths", it is important to realize that communication--more precisely language is--a means and process of gaining power for, "it is the powerful who made the names of things into law" (Nietzsche 267). And this becomes obvious when we look at mass communication and its homogenization of culture as means of social control. The first chapter of Hardt's Myths for the Masses an Essay on Mass Communication really drives this idea of language and communication as a "will to power" (Nietzsche 266): "Henceforth, the idea of mass communication reflects the properties of mass society in its totalitarian excesses, and guides considerations of culture and society that have serious consequences for an understanding of the self and the relations with others in the world" (Hardt 6).
So in Nietzsche's words I choose to not "define" communication but instead to try and identify the driving force of communication which is the "will to power". Max Horkheimer's quote which Hardt chose to preface his essay identifies the dangers that occur now with the advent of mass communication's ability to control mass populations whilst concealing the power structure that perpetuates it:
The media of public communication...constantly profess their adherence to the individual's ultimate value and inalienable freedom, but they tend to forswear such values by fettering the individual to prescribed attitudes, thoughts and buying habits
The power structure which holds power over us being freemarket capitalism and the corporations which benefit from the positing of its monetary values (as truth values) into our communication/language exchange with one another.

Bibliography
Hardt, Hanno. Myths for the Masses: an Essay on Communication. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "The Will to Power." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Malden, Ma.:Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 266-270.