Conversation As a Radical Act

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Conversation As a Radical Act
Interesting diagram looking at the act of communication (online and off, but the implication is more online than off, to me at least). The 'diversity' petal to me speaks to the structure of the network, and I would add things like autonomy, openness and interactivity to that part of it. The 'key issues' speaks to meaning or content, which I've addressed a bit with semantics. But the 'process' part of it is something I haven't spoken a whole lot about: communications, even in networks, can vary greatly in type. In traditional networks, we think simply of a 'signal' being sent from one node to another, but in fact what we send are complex patterns. Handshakes, protocols, syntax, customs, flames, emoticons - these are all ways of representing the forms those patterns take. Viewed from one perspective, these are signals sent from one node to another. Viewed from another perspective, these are patterns of connectivity with emergent meaning (recognizable only from outside) sent from one network to another. More...