A Dialectical Social Framework for the Analysis of Media Communication

This article proposes a dialectical theoretical framework for the analysis of media and media communication. The study begins with the determination that a genuine theoretical analysis of media and communication must take into account certain constitutive relations and processes within the social whole, since communication is not part of a single social structure or a distinctive structure within a social system. The article tries to formulate and analyze these relationships and processes in the form of dialectical tensions and patterns created by simultaneous, twin and overlapping dialectic relationships and processes of individualization-socialization and classification-massization. In doing so, the article reinterprets the forms of old and new media and of communication and highlights blogs as they reveal a true communicative media potential; the article also discusses concepts such as "free labor", which is also used by those who approach communication and media issues from political economy, and proposes new concepts such as virtual class and virtual petty bourgeoisie.