Rhethinking the zoon politikon in the media information and communication society

Abstract

The study of communication since the beginning of the 20th century has privileged the mediatic focus, completely forgetting that the phenomenon of communication is something more intimate in the human than the use of technological means, because it presents itself as an anthropological condition through language. The fascination for the new information and communication technologies has led to believe that the need to communicate is the cause of the use of the media rather than being political rationality, that is, the practice of deciding with other common problems. In this context, the present work proposes to rethink the epistemological assumption of privileging, in the study of communication, the media as a way to solve communicational problems, when in reality they are epiphenomenal themes of the communication of the zoon politikon. Having said this, we propose to point out some points of reflection on the theoretical obsessions in which the discipline of communication sciences has been involved, in order to visualize at its right point the need to shore up some outlets that invite a strictly epistemological work on human communication through language, rather than an instrumental-strategic program in the practice of communication.