The Ethics of Communication Environments

Abstract

This chapter analyses the idea of communication as not being simply just something that we do, but as something that we live. Communication is understood as an environment in which we move. This is a “virtual” environment that needs to be added to the “natural” ones with which human beings have commonly interacted throughout history. Communication technologies, including the devices analysed in the previous chapter, are able to open, maintain, and develop this environment. Even in this case it is true to say that we are talking about multiple environments. They are, as I mentioned above, virtual environments. More than simulations of reality through a machine, they are found in a widespread and daily manner on the Internet, taking into consideration the various phases in which they are involved. After clarifying how communication is to be understood today as a living environment, this chapter will deepen the concept of “virtual” in its various meanings and provide a reconstruction of the history of the Internet and its various developments. In particular, the Internet of Netsurfers, the Internet of Social Networks and the Internet of Things will be analysed. In all of these cases, the customs and habits (ethos) promoted by the Network will be examined in depth and will highlight the problems that are related to them, and the criteria and principles of behaviour that allow people to move in these environments in a good way.