The integration of different modes of communication

Soon it will be an interactive network. The formation of a hypertext and a meta-language which, for the first time in history, integrate into the same sytem the written, oral, and audio-visual modalities of human communication.

As Postman writes, ” we do not see… reality… as ‘it’ is, but as our languages are. And our languages are our media. Our media are our metaphors. our metaphors create the content of our culture. ”


Because culture is mediated and enacted through communication, culture themselves- that is, our historically produced systems of beliefs and codes-become fundamentally transformed, and will be more so over time, by the new technology system.

–Castells, “The Rise of the Networked Society”, p357