The Psychological Problems of Communication

The proliferation of ever more sophisticated means, channels and strategies of communication is a meaningful indicator of the centrality of this process, and, at the same time, a driving force in the field. This process of proliferation is matched by the increasing number of perspectives: anthropological, sociological, psychological, neurological, semiotic, linguistic, cybernetic, and so on by which the phenomenon is analyzed. We are dealing with transformations of a vast scale. These transformations are correlated, on one hand, to new and stimulating possibilities, expectations and hopes (at the geopolitical level, for instance, one thinks of the progressive opening up of frontiers and an increasing permeability of national borders), but, on the other, they are easily associated with sensations of loss of points of reference, models and values, creating a diffuse sense of precariousness and insecurity.