New ICTs and the Problem of ‘Publicness’

Abstract

Global developments and the appearance of new devices in information and communication technology have radically modified people's communicative practices and their information-handling behaviours, while both scientific and lay representations of communications and communicative situations have also changed, necessitating the elaboration of a complex theory of communications. The article attempts to give an analytical description of the underlying structure of the field of all forms of communications, using structuring semantic oppositions that explain the norms and strategies that govern people's communicative behaviour. The semantic dichotomies public/private, public/non-public, direct/ mediated build a framework wherein each field is defined according to these oppositions. They help to understand how speakers attempt to place themselves, their partners and their communicative acts and how they construct their communications in this structured space. The semantic oppositions discussed in this article constitute one aspect of a complex theory of communications that covers all forms of communication from personal to mass media and takes into consideration the existence of overlapping public spheres as well as attempting to explain people's communicative behaviours in terms of intentions and success, norms and strategies.