Reflections on Communication and Culture

Communication like language is symbolic and impersonal, as is, for example, mathematics. It is, on the other hand, expressive and personal like music. Both forms of communication function in bringing about those understandings between individuals and peoples which are the substance-the warp and woof-of culture. The social function of communication seems to be to bring about and maintain understanding and cultural solidarity among individuals and societies. It may be contrasted with the social function of competition which is to bring about an orderly distribution and a division of labor between individuals and societies. This division of labor, so far as it is brought about by competition, involves the individuation of the competing units. Competition and communication may thus be said to suplement each other, since communication operates as an integrating and socializing principle, while competition is the principles of individuation. More specifically, communication may be said to operate in two dimensions. On the one hand, it serves to bring about a diffusion of cultural traits and so widen the cultural area within which socia relations may exist. On the other hand, communication, in so far as it brings diverse cultural influences into focus at some center of communication, like the rural village or metropolitan city, tends the bring into the common understanding new ideas-ideas that inevitably arise in the ferment, confusion, and conflict of the acculturation process. The processes of diffusion and acculturation seem to take place in the manner and under the conditions in which news is collected and diffused. It is characteristic of news that it circulates as far as its message is understood and seems important. It is probable, however, that the cinema, which circulates not news, but pictures, is more devastating in its effects upon local cultures and in bringing the widely dispersed people of the world within the influence of a single culture of civilization than is the news proper.