Though communication is a term that coined in
the recent past in the west, it is not a new concept. It is the fundamental
process of interaction between living beings. Since man is created as a social
being, he is meant to interact with each other to facilitate a social life. In
that aspect, communication is a lifeless term without living beings. Communication is possible only between living
beings. Whether it is animals, birds or human beings, communication is a
routine affair.
Thus it was always believed that, the
fundamental process of communication is not possible without a partner, but in
the context of our nation during the past, when mysticism was on the air,
communication to oneself gained significance. As mysticism is based on a
self-centred life where one understands his or her deep realization of God and
the universe by himself or herself. Budha, Mirabai, Kabeer Das etc were a few
who could perform such interaction within themselves without being a visible
receiver. In such communication both the sender and receiver are the same
person. Such a communication is known by the name intra personnel
communication.
This kind of intra personnel communication
enriched the inter personnel communication as all those who practiced intra
personnel communication could practice inter personnel communication much
effectively than others. The above
discussion indicates that communication and social life is not parallel phenomena,
instead both of them go hand in hand like a simultaneous phenomenon as an
individual can communicate only from his thoughts that is based on his social and
cultural life. As the current life of one person is influenced by the past of
his culture, the culture has a close association with the communication of that
particular person.
This indicate that the language and other
communicative aspects of a person who lives in a rural area will never have
urban flavours. One can easily identify the socio cultural life of an
individual from the way he communicate from others. This idea can put it most
effectively with the statement ‘Communication does not exist in vacuum, it is
an integral part of our socio-political and cultural life’. In the current
world as well, the media of communication are not independent from the
socio-political and cultural life of the society. The expressions and manifestations
of the media are depended on the events and thoughts of the social, political
and cultural life of the society.