Contemporary world-society: from the globalization of communication to the communicational globalization of the world

Abstract

Is globalization directly and causally related to communication? If so, how and why? How might a dialectic play out in communication and society interaction? What may the mass media have to do with the globalization of societies? Starting from these questions, the aim of this article is to conceptually approach and problematize the globalization of communication as a consequent transition or a changing process through a communicational globalization of the world. Following a theoretical research and a bibliographical review, this article explores and questions a dialectical perspective about the globalization of contemporaneity that is producing a single and universal world-society. Accepting the general and consensual assumption that communication is a universal form to link people, cultures, and ideas, this article aims: a) to advocate the growing and multiform uses, social functions, mass interactions, and extensive effects of communication in the world, so that our societies become a single contemporary world-society; b) to highlight the dialectic between society and communication through a globalization process, which is common to these two social phenomena.