Introduction

Abstract

Originally, to communicate means “to act in common” or “to allow to act in common.” This is what is implied by the Latin word communicatio, which can be understood as “society,” guided by the principal meaning of “sharing.” In the twentieth century, this word acquired its own reality with a focus on interaction, enhanced by information transmission techniques. This is why Western scholars tend to understand communication primarily as a circulation of messages and, gradually, as a general process of symbolic mediations (signs, images, and affects) which organize the human common. This is the basis for studying social relations generated by modern technologies, within the practical framework of the communication/information pair. This is simply another name for “mediatized” communication, which appears today as the main form of organizing people and things under the new, socio-technical world order.