CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Dervin, B. (1988/2002). The world information structure: Contradictions, communication invention, and community. Sogang Journal of Media and Culture, 6, 113-126. Originally published as: Dervin, B. (1988). La estructura mundial de la información: Contradicciones, comunicación y comunidad [The world information structure: Contradictions, communication invention, and community]. In El Dia en Libros, Il Foro International de Comunicacion (pp. 49-56). Mexico City, Mexico: Sociedad Cooperative Publicaciones Mexicanas, S.C.L.
© Brenda Dervin (1988 & 2002).

CAUTION:
The paper as presented below is a pre-publication version of the published article; as such, it does not reflect any last minute editing changes, nor does it provide pagination markers.

ABSTRACT:
In this paper originally delivered at a conference convened by the newspaper El Dia in Mexico City, Dervin focuses on theme which has been addressed in her writings since the early 1980s: that the call for more representative and participatory communication systems—whether these be media systems or institutional interfaces with citizenry—must be more than a call to diversify ownership or change leadership. The theme is pursued in this paper in the context of the predictions being made for the impacts of the new technologies on the world information structure. These predictions range from utopian (we will see information diversity and access on a scale never before possible) to despairing (we will see escalating divides between the haves and the have-nots and increased control of information by power centers. Dervin’s argument is that both arguments ignore the need for the human species to invent alternative approaches to communication and both rest of communication-as-transmission theories. She presents a rationale for a communication-as-dialogue approach to communication, and issues a call for inventing new communication procedures.

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