394 Global Ethics for Leadership
common, the inter emerges very strongly: the inter-personal, the inter-
group, which is closely related to the dimension of dialogue. Dialogue
also refers to encounter and approximation, exchange. Therefore, here
we see elements that make up this meaning of communication and Hu-
man Sciences teach us that they are part of the human condition: the
human being, as a social being, do not exist to live alone, he/she only
survives in relation to other beings. In order to exist, men and women
have to live-together, enjoy com-panionship, comm-union, and comm-
unication is the possibility of making all of this concrete, including the
diversity that is at the nature of humanity. Hence the human being al-
ways looks for ways to communicate beyond her/himself and to extend
the possibility of communion beyond geographical boundaries. Thus,
the media emerged^297.
In a short time (approximately a century), mechanical and electronic
media were developed making it possible for the disruption barriers of
time and space, to the point that today we live in a time of sociocultural
and economic transformations that brings out feelings that range from
euphoria and amazement. This is because we live the communication
age—a revolutionary era marked by technological achievements that, a
few decades ago, were conceivable only in fiction films.
The changes in the human ability to communicate have made it pos-
sible for changes in different aspects of human life: relationships, ac-
tions to inform and seek information, education, entertainment, con-
sumption. In these changes, the receiver becomes the protagonist - a role
that until a few decades ago was only related to the issuer.
In modern times, this characteristic of the receiver is intensified due
to the development of the society of information and of interactive pro-
cesses, i.e., actions that marks the reception is enhanced with the possi-
297
McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New
York: McGraw-Hill 1964.