In the era of hyper-connectivity and ultra-segmentation, how do you actually reach people?

In our era of hyper­con­nectiv­ity and ultra-seg­ment­a­tion, what can help us live togeth­er more har­mo­ni­ously? For Domi­n­ique Wolton, it is impossible to answer this ques­tion without a prop­er under­stand­ing of human com­mu­nic­a­tion. A soci­olo­gist, research dir­ect­or at the CNRS and founder of the journ­al Her­mès, he is one of the lead­ing thinkers on the links between com­mu­nic­a­tion, inform­a­tion, tech­no­logy and democracy.

Domi­n­ique Wolton. Com­mu­nic­a­tion is one of the most fun­da­ment­al and uni­ver­sal human activ­it­ies. Without com­mu­nic­a­tion, there is indif­fer­ence and war. It is there­fore a pre­requis­ite for peace­ful coex­ist­ence between dif­fer­ent indi­vidu­als and groups. That is why I argue that we must defend it, even if it is slow, con­flic­tu­al and dif­fi­cult, because we have no bet­ter solu­tion for liv­ing togeth­er. But to defend it, we must first under­stand what it is. 

Fun­da­ment­ally, com­mu­nic­a­tion is nego­ti­ation. It stems from a deeply rooted desire in our nature to reach out to our fel­low human beings – to share, to love, to cre­ate. But it does not come nat­ur­ally. We have all exper­i­enced this: when we meet someone, noth­ing goes as planned. Our part­ner brings with them a cul­ture, interests and rep­res­ent­a­tions that are not our own, and our mes­sage does not come across as we would like it to. We hoped to find a double, and we come across someone else! This is what I call mis­com­mu­nic­a­tion. It took me 20 years to under­stand that this stage is not a fail­ure to be avoided at all costs, but the tip­ping point that will determ­ine the out­come of the exchange. Because when faced with this block­age, we either stop there, and that is com­mu­nic­a­tion break­down, com­plete rup­ture, war. Or we give up the fantasy of imme­di­ate under­stand­ing and start to nego­ti­ate, that is, learn to live togeth­er. Our era has lost sight of this pro­cess and its uni­ver­sal­ity, redu­cing com­mu­nic­a­tion to the mere trans­mis­sion of information. 

To con­sider that com­mu­nic­at­ing means inform­ing is not neut­ral. This mind­set assumes a neces­sar­ily pass­ive receiv­er, and there­fore one who is poten­tially ali­en­ated. From this per­spect­ive, inher­ited from a Marx­ist world­view, if I con­trol the dis­course and the tools, I con­trol those to whom I am address­ing myself. It is there­fore not a ques­tion of nego­ti­ation, but of eman­cip­a­tion by mul­tiply­ing chan­nels and trans­mit­ters. Tech­no­logy then appears to be provid­en­tial: we con­vince ourselves that the more inform­a­tion there is, the more truth there will be – and the more means of com­mu­nic­a­tion there are, the bet­ter we will under­stand each other. 

This vis­ion has been defen­ded for 50 years by a large part of the elite, for lack of any real reflec­tion on what com­mu­nic­a­tion is and has fuelled a kind of bliss­ful ador­a­tion of chan­nels. This is one of my great intel­lec­tu­al pet peeves. Today, we are begin­ning to under­stand that these prom­ises will not be kept. We are over-informed and hyper-con­nec­ted, and we do not under­stand each oth­er any bet­ter than before. On the con­trary, mul­tiply­ing inform­a­tion has led to more lies, fake news and manip­u­la­tion, and mul­tiply­ing exchanges has increased res­ist­ance and polar­isa­tion. It is there­fore time to rethink the organ­isa­tion of our coex­ist­ence and to stop ima­gin­ing that our sal­va­tion will be technical. 

The found­a­tion of demo­cracy is not trans­par­ency, but inter­me­di­ar­ies. Please note: I am not advoc­at­ing opa­city. But it is com­pletely mis­guided to think that remov­ing inter­me­di­ar­ies will cre­ate para­dise, because we are not angels. More trans­mit­ters does not mean more com­mu­nic­a­tion. On the con­trary, it makes power struggles more opaque and more dif­fi­cult to control. 

Inter­me­di­ar­ies are those who organ­ise the coex­ist­ence of dif­fer­ent points of view: teach­ers, doc­tors, sci­ent­ists, politi­cians, mil­it­ary per­son­nel, reli­gious lead­ers, etc. They are the guar­ant­ors of com­mu­nic­a­tion under­stood as nego­ti­ation. Their legit­im­acy comes from the fact that they are the cus­todi­ans, each in their own field, of know­ledge that has been slowly built up over time and is rooted in his­tory. Only this her­it­age can help us res­ist the tempta­tion to seek imme­di­ate answers to every ques­tion, as prom­ised by technology. 

Of course, there must be super­vis­ory bod­ies, because inter­me­di­ar­ies are neither geni­uses nor saints. But the imper­fec­tions of people and insti­tu­tions are bet­ter than the false ideals of tech­no­logy and total trans­par­ency. We must redis­cov­er the con­sid­er­able role they play in demo­crat­ic life.

Fun­da­ment­ally, I believe that the bru­tal­isa­tion of polit­ic­al dis­course is merely a reflec­tion of our own lack of respect and trust in the author­it­ies, fuelled by the twin myths of trans­par­ency and per­fect equal­ity. We have already talked about trans­par­ency above. As for equal­ity, the only time this won­der­ful uto­pia comes to life is when we vote. For everything else, there are dif­fer­ences between us in terms of skills, respons­ib­il­it­ies and knowledge. 

Con­tempt for politi­cians in office is, for example, a very French sport. Of course, we may dis­agree with them, but the least we can do is recog­nise that their task is emin­ently dif­fi­cult – and far bey­ond the cap­ab­il­it­ies of most of us. Again, I am not say­ing that we should give them carte blanche. But we must remem­ber that there is no demo­cracy worthy of the name without author­it­ies – and without coun­ter­bal­an­cing powers. Con­versely, the more you sell the illu­sion of total equal­ity, the more viol­ent the back­lash. We see this today with the rise of illiber­al­ism, which demands ‘real’ lead­ers in return.

It is not enough to simply express one­self in order to com­mu­nic­ate, nor to be vis­ible in order to be legit­im­ate. Most of the time, these influ­en­cers are onto­lo­gic­al frauds: they do not play the role of inter­me­di­ar­ies in the sense I have just men­tioned. They express them­selves asym­met­ric­ally and top-down, and most often for their own bene­fit. They also largely escape reg­u­la­tion by coun­ter­bal­an­cing powers, which are always sus­pi­cious of tra­di­tion­al media, but much less so of these inde­pend­ent con­tent cre­at­ors. It is urgent that legit­im­ate author­it­ies speak out against the influ­ence of these actors. 

Seg­ment­a­tion is the per­ver­sion of indi­vidu­al­ism. Indi­vidu­al­ism involves the search for indi­vidu­al expres­sion, but also the pos­sib­il­ity of oppos­i­tion. When there is no grand com­mon pro­ject – polit­ic­al, reli­gious or sci­entif­ic – indi­vidu­al­ism becomes reified and turns into seg­ment­a­tion. Taken to its extreme, seg­ment­a­tion is the death of any society.

This dynam­ic is rooted in cap­it­al­ism, whose ideal is to turn every indi­vidu­al into a mar­ket, provided, of course, that they are solvent – oth­er­wise, cap­it­al­ism rejects them without remorse. We can try to break out of seg­ment­a­tion through com­munity. But we must be vigil­ant: if it does not peace­fully con­front diversity with­in soci­ety, if it does not com­mu­nic­ate with oth­er com­munit­ies, it will tip over into com­munit­ari­an­ism and rein­force the seg­ment­a­tion it claims to combat. 

Yes, the UN. The UN is made up of more than 130 states that do not like each oth­er very much and have noth­ing to say to each oth­er, but which man­age to coex­ist. For me, this is the greatest achieve­ment in the world, even if it gives the impres­sion of tread­ing water. Or Europe. There are 27 of us, we do not agree, but we are build­ing some­thing togeth­er. Both prove that some­thing is pos­sible bey­ond hatred. We must defend these mod­els and take them as examples every­where, instead of delud­ing ourselves with easy illusions.

Abso­lutely not. Tech­no­logy can be extremely use­ful eco­nom­ic­ally, and there is no deny­ing that it fas­cin­ates us. The cari­ca­ture of the mod­ern human is someone with head­phones on and eyes glued to their screen, absorbed in the flow of their smart­phone. The hor­ror of isol­a­tion… We have even man­aged to con­vince ourselves intel­lec­tu­ally that the more alone we are, the freer we are. 

But des­pite appear­ances, all this tech­nic­al and intel­lec­tu­al equip­ment can­not change us onto­lo­gic­ally because, fun­da­ment­ally, we are inter­ested in only one ques­tion: ‘Is there someone out there who loves me?’ No robot, social plat­form or AI will ever be able to replace a human being in answer­ing that question. 

Interview by Anne Orliac