What is communication?

Communication in cyberspace involves a virtual and circular transmission of narratives between a sender and receiver.

Information on the global has been made available and has been transmitted through media institutions. A medium connects and makes accessible, in other words, mediates at least a pair of “worlds”; the outside macro-globe and the inside micro-space.[1] Information is the most distributed good within this global flow.[2]

Cyberspace challenges the basic Shannon-Weaver model of communication.[3] The roles of sender and of receiver merge; and the former audience becomes active and connects to a network.

In cyberspace, the transmission involves a circulation of unfinished texts, and the cyber communication is entirely virtual. A mutually understandable code, notably the English language as the lingua franca in cyberspace[4], forms the basis of and for communication.

[1] Lippmann, Walter: Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. The first edition was published in 1922 in New York by Harcourt, Brace and Company. The full text is downloadable under http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6456. A GoogleBooks digitalized version is available at http://books.google.com/books?id=eLobn4WwbLUC&dq=Public+Opinion+Lippmann&hl=de&source=gbs_navlinks_s. 05 January 2011. Web.

[2] Mowlana, Hamid: Global Information and World Communication. London: Sage, 1997. Print.

[3] Shannon, Claude: A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Bell System Technical Journal 27 (July and October) 1948, pp. 379-423, 623-656, http://plan9.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/shannon1948.pdf. 05 January 2011. Web.

[4] Dor, Daniel: From Englishization to Imposed Multilingualism:Globalization, the Internet, and the Political Economy of the Linguistic Code. Public Culture 16 (1), pp. 97-118. Print.