Critical constructivism
Communication processes are pervasive and their epistemological status disputed. Interdisciplinary by nature, communication studies were hijacked by the social sciences. In the decades that followed the emergence of communication "science" back in the 30’s, they started to be seen as an emergent "discipline", having similar standards of social fields such as sociology, political science and anthropology. For us, this assessment is wrong and highly misleading. We believe that along with the particular contexts of situated communication processes, universal pragmatic forms underline human and social communication behaviors. If we accept that universal and situated knowledge are both interwoven in the process and the production of communication, the epistemological status of communication as a scientific field should necessarily be hybrid. In fact, we consider communication as a meta-discipline, a transversal biological mechanism whose epistemological foundations form the basis of all scientific disciplines and popular knowledge. Communication crosses all sciences - biology, mathematics, physics, history, sociology, political science, psychology, cognitive sciences, etc... - and all philosophies, in addition to the arts and the daily exchanges that people have in kitchens, bars, streets...
Communication has individual and socio-political dimensions. It involves people and communities by enabling them to exchange reasons, feelings and emotions, and moral and ethical judgments as well. Communication is, essentially, moral and ethical action. We aim to extend this vision in order to go beyond the idea that communication is just a scientific issue, because it is fundamentally a practice of making decisions in our daily lives, that have consequences. Contemporary mass media, the Internet and other less obvious but far more important media such as money and political administration are the canvas in which communication practices occur. By adopting a critical standing with regards to science, the arts and daily life, we aim to explore how communication processes are co-constructed, where do they lead, which genuinely inner (psychological) or outer (socio-political) values, in moral and ethical terms, are touched in those processes, and also to provide meaningful answers to questions in a fast changing world, shaped by digital technologies.