ABSTRACT
The term “message” is not analytically neutral. 1 Though it lacks a strict technical meaning, both academic and popular uses of the term connote:
unit of communication that is complete and self-contained
unit whose communication value 2 is that it makes something known 3 (information, beliefs, feelings or wants, personal qualities) to those who are addressed
unit that makes known something that it was within the person who produced it to communicate about the matter at hand to those who were addressed
unit of communication that makes known what it does reliably, on the basis of rules of language and applicable social conventions
