Reconfiguration as subjects of communication: implications for virtual environments for educational purposes

Abstract

Current technology enhances communication and forms of expression, enriching the setting of human interaction, the inter-subject space where experience is built and where comprehension and consensus around meaning are elaborated. All in all, this is the domain where the processes which intimately define the concept of culture truly take place, empowering incorporation into an association of practices, through which the process of humanisation occurs. The basic abilities of language permit communication in different situations, but the abilities which characterise oral communication today are not sufficient, given that the technology which modulates these encounters require a reconfiguration of users as subjects of communication, so that they are able to communicate effectively in the technological situations of interaction today. What does reconfiguration as subjects of communication mean, when referring to a virtual stage? The search for an answer to this question is the core of this article, which begins with an analysis of the power of the mind to manage knowledge from the two-dimensional argument of scientific discourse and stories as expressive forms of communication. It then deals with communication from three complementary focal points: pragmatism, symbolic interactionism and the postulates of the Escuela de Palo Alto, which offer a complex vision of communication, necessary for understanding how our forms of communication have been modified, and to understand the implications resulting from the implantation of new technology space and the consequences for the practice which promotes the change in knowledge. Our aim is to consider the key concepts which, from these theories, are most valid today, and how these are updated to understand how we communicate in virtual environments, the predominant place where, today, the major part of information management and negotiation of meaning in training processes are carried out (Rheingold, 1994; Rheingold, 2004). Communication and negotiation of meaning express fundamental powers of the human mind.