Community studies 2003-4: Lecture 11 Community and communication
Introduction
Raymond Williams has emphasised how the
words ‘community’ and ‘communication’ are
connected in their origin, along with other
words such as common, communion and
communism: they all share a basis in the Latin word communis meaning ‘common’.
In this lecture we examine some aspects of
this connection. It is more than just seeing
that the words have the same root.
To emphasise the communicative aspect of
community is to move away from the idea of
community as based on a particular space,
and also to challenge the necessity for shared
identity. There is potential for a more radical
and open concept of community that may be
more relevant to contemporary globalised society.
In chapter 6 of your textbook, Delanty emphasises how community has tended to be
seen in a conservative and affirmative sense.
It looks backwards to an idealised state of
events and it is resists change
But he suggests there is a more radical way to
approach community. This is the notion of
‘community as dissent’. This does not mean
people acting to defend a pre-existing community, as we saw earlier in discussion of
community action. Rather it relates to how
communities can be created through and can
emerge from protest action: and specifically
from protest as a type of communication.
Communication and community
The connection between communication and
community has long been recognised. For example for the American writer John Dewey
(1859-1952) ‘communication is the process
of revealing old common ground and creating
new common ground among persons. Thus,
in interacting with the environment, there are
individual outcomes (consequences for the
individual) as well as social outcomes (consequences for individuals together)’ – for the
community (for more on Dewey see
http://www.fred.net/tzaka/dewey.html)
Delanty outlines the views of the major sociological theorists Habermas, Touraine and
Bauman on this issue. Each of them is critical
of the traditional notion of community, seeing
it as linked to control and repression. But the
concept may be interpreted in a more critical
way: in particular by emphasising the communicative aspect of community.
For Habermas: community can be oppressive
by focusing on moral unity; but it can also be
positive in terms of a communication community. Habermas sees communication as social action: it can be a means of social integration and a way to reconcile conflicting positions (eg the Belfast Agreement). Communication entails shared conceptions of truth,
justice, ethics and politics.
Public discourse is, for Habermas, fundamental to democracy. Thus it is crucial that spaces (real and metaphorical) are created to allow this (ties into notion of 3rd place)
For Habermas modern society has a number
of such communicative spaces, some are
more disposed to generation of ‘the truth’ –
eg disinterested areas such as science and the
university
Such communication actions lead to the development of what we might call ‘community’: it is, according to Delanty, never complete but always emergent
Like Habermas, Touraine and Bauman express a fear that community can become an
exclusive and oppressive concept: indeed in
its strongest and most aggressive nationalist
form it becomes fascism. (eg exclusion of
Jews from German ‘community’)
French sociologists Alain Touraine sees as
‘the main challenge to democracy conceptions of politics that appeal to cultural heritage, community and nationalism’. There is a
link here to the recent growth of extreme
right-wing politics in Europe (for example in
countries such as Austria, Denmark and perhaps in Northern Ireland) and to the types of
exclusionary protests we have seen in Ireland). It may also be discerned in the rise of
bodies like Al Qaeda (see Barber’s book Ji-
had vs McWorld which we return to in a future lecture) and also to the influence of
Christian fundamentalism, especially in the
USA and to some extent Australia.
Bauman is suspicious of the nostalgia he sees
to be inherent in the notion of community. It
is ‘merely a word that conveys a feeling of
security that makes the world a warm and cosy place’ (Delanty, p.118).
But security and freedom can be contradictory: for example in the contemporary USA the
focus on ‘homeland security’ may make
many Americans feel more secure, but it also
involves discrimination against many people
and groups, and severe restrictions on what
people can do.
Thus, according to Delanty, ‘in this view of
community people from diverse backgrounds
can come together in communal activism
united by a common commitment and solidarity that results’. This can be seen, for example in the anti-globalisation protests
Politics is now more to do with identity than
membership of pre-defined social groups
(there is less party identification and a greater
number of ‘floating voters’)
Delanty concludes then that ‘community is
not an underlying reality but is constructed in
the actual process of mobilisation’ (p. 123):
commitment to a particular set of values is
the issue.
Bauman would like to see a community that
is not built on identity but on care, concern
and responsibility. One that is ‘based on individual autonomy and in which the exclusion
of the other is not the price to be paid for the
identity of the self’ (Delanty, p.119)
The ultimate expression of such an emergent
community is perhaps the ‘Burning Man’
event that takes place every year in the Black
Rock Desert in Nevada, USA. 25,000 people
appear in the desert, stay for a couple of
weeks or so, and depart, leaving nothing behind them.
Social movements
Implications
Delanty argues that to move beyond the distinction between individualism and community it is necessary to look at social movements.
Social movements are a feature of modern
social life: they refer to groupings of people
and processes that seek to bring about
change: but they are not based on ‘old’ divisions like class or nationalism.
What are the implications of a view that sees
community as communicative action?

it disentangles community from space.
Thus we can think of communities that
are not based on propinquity, or closeness.

this also removes the tie to particular
pieces of land, whether townlands or
nations. This expands the range of
people that can be part of a community

it is a forward-looking rather than
backward-facing notion of community.
It is optimistic rather than nostalgic/pessimistic

it focuses on action rather than statis

it embraces notions of democracy and
openness rather than control and exclusion.
Delanty argues that community and individualism are not polar opposites but are linked to
each other.
Community can be created through people’s
involvement in social movements. It is thus
created through communicative action (Habermas’s term): it does not relate to a preordained notion of identity or place, rather a
common identity emerges through people’s
interaction with each other. Such interaction
usually takes place around a view of the future, rather than one of the past. But it is
open-ended: the future is probably not
achieved, but changes take place in the process, and new ideas, structures and relationships can emerge from the action.
We will explore these aspects of community
in the remaining three lectures.
Perry Share, December 2003
Community studies: Lecture 11 Community and cultural diversity