Communication sociale et communication culturelle : Idéologie et transmission de sens du point de vue des sciences de la culture

Abstract

The development of the phenomenon of communication in contemporary society has apparently reached a level of generalization that justifies its description as a « communication society », even going so far as to encompass the development of the human sciences themselves. Here, however, the term seems simply to describe the phenomenal character of the manifestations, without consideration of how a truly reflexive understanding succeeds in explaining the logic of this development. We propose to situate this understanding within the framework of the questionings of an onto-epistemological nature that affect the contemporary human sciences, by showing on the one hand how the latter must above all succeed in recognizing the ideological dimension that communication develops within this context, and how they also succeed in distinguishing their own theoretical project from this ideological horizon. It is by situating, in particular, an analytical possibility that draws inspiration from the tradition of the cultural sciences (Dilthey, Simmel, Weber), enriched by more recent conceptual contributions (Bakhtine, Cassirer, Freitag, etc.) that we propose this phenomenological reinterpretation of the development of the communication society. The development of the phenomenon of communication in contemporary society has apparently reached a level of generalization that justifies its description as a « communication society », even going so far as to encompass the development of the human sciences themselves. Here, however, the term seems simply to describe the phenomenal character of the manifestations, without consideration of how a truly reflexive understanding succeeds in explaining the logic of this development. We propose to situate this understanding within the framework of the questionings of an onto-epistemological nature that affect the contemporary human sciences, by showing on the one hand how the latter must above all succeed in recognizing the ideological dimension that communication develops within this context, and how they also succeed in distinguishing their own theoretical project from this ideological horizon. It is by situating, in particular, an analytical possibility that draws inspiration from the tradition of the cultural sciences (Dilthey, Simmel, Weber), enriched by more recent conceptual contributions (Bakhtine, Cassirer, Freitag, etc.) that we propose this phenomenological reinterpretation of the development of the communication society.