Communication and media: what are the main changes?
How has communication changed over the years, in relation to subjects, media, flows and interactions?
The speed with which the ITC ( Information Technology Communication ) sector has evolved has reached in a very short time unknown but innovative dynamics such as to influence the means of communication as well. A famous statement by Manuel Castells frames this concept perfectly: «In the United States it took radio thirty years to reach sixty million people, television reached this level of diffusion in fifteen years; The Internet has done so in just three years since the birth of the world wide web “Smart Circle.
Communication has gone from standardized to individual, to become international and global; as well as the transmission of the message, from one to one to one to many , up to many to many , therefore equal and “shared”, in reference to new media. Specifically, the one to one model provides for a communication flow that starts from a single source and reaches a single user, therefore an interaction between two subjects, sender and recipient, who communicate with each other. The one to many model , on the other hand, involves the presence of multiple receivers and a single sender. Finally, the most recent and interactive model is that many to many : the flow of communication in this case involves several people exchanging information.
What influences the communication process – at the same time explaining the transformations of the years – is also the nature of the contact that can be face to face and not face to face . In the first case there is a dialogue between two individuals, “face to face”; in the other case, however, there is a dialogue between two people who, however, are not in the same place, but communicate for example by telephone, Internet or video call.
The flow of the communication process, then, can be unidirectional , bidirectional and multidirectional :
unidirectional : the receipt of a message does not require a response (eg billboards);
bidirectional : circular relationship, ie the sender and recipient interact;
multidirectional : the communication process involves several users who interact with each other, it is therefore a type of flow that starts from many and reaches many. To this, then, can be added the multimedia flow , which consists in using technological means of communication during communication.