Communication and It's Revolutionary Shift

Communication is the trunk to everyone’s tree, the stalk to everyone’s bean, the framework for everyone who ever had a burning desire to accomplish dreams and fulfill a high self satisfaction standard. How one communicates to the world is how the public perceives who they are on a deep level; hence, one’s persona is created. Communication is a vital human skill that not only involves language, but actions, and expressions. Just like the tango, it takes two( or at least two), for communication to work, to be effective, to mean anything. Which brings about that communication is more than just saying words, or typing to a friend. Communication effectively brings people and ideas together, while continually verifying individuality.
The community that people share and collectively build upon has made few revolutionary shifts throughout its timeline. The latest and, some may argue, most prolific epitome of a communication swing came with the arrival of the internet. This outlet has done what the printing press could not: the internet has exposed the individual. The printing press mass produced books and other such writings to exemplify the sender receiver paradigm. The internet now allows the receiver to send back what they feel is worth communicating. Suddenly the sender/receiver model consists of a circular flow rather than a simple arrow. Mass communication has finally broken away from the somewhat detrimental mold that it was stuck in, while the printing press reigned king. Hanno Hardt exclaims in his essay Myths for the Masses, “ Consequently, while mass communication as a media practice contains political and economic priorities that redefine its traditional role in a democratic society, as an idea it conceals a flawed conception of a democratic way of life with an increasing isolation of the individual by private (economic) media interests”[1]. With print an individual can only listen, with the internet an individual can speak. Hardt says, “Mass communication contains political and economic interests”, which does ring true for the internet in many ways; however, the internet contains the social dimension that separates how we communicate now from any mode of communication in history.
[1] Hardt, Hanno. Myths for the Masses: An Essay on Mass Communication. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 2