ABSTRACT
This chapter develops what is perhaps the first integrated theory of global communication. Based on the definition of different modes of interactive (or dialogic), observational and discursive communication, it puts forward a communicative ecology approach. In addition to the paradigm of a “global public sphere”, this entails describing the sphere of interactive “global communality” and giving an account of the social and political functioning of both aspects. Guided by an integrationist systems and lifeworld theory, which also has constructivist and structuralist levels, a panopticon of the very different communicative competencies of individual actors and social systems is developed. The mass media are a potential guarantor of the discursive public sphere but are virtually incapable of entering into dialogue with one another, a competence that the individual possesses to a special degree. Ideally, the role of mediator would be played by the organized social systems of politics, economy and society, but their actions are bound to remain ambivalent as long as the nation state provides the primary systemic frame. The future of global communication and globalization will largely depend on how interactions between actors develop under the conditions of digitization and whether the organized social systems can perform their lead role in globalization more effectively in future.
