Information and its role in the formation of human attitudes and a communication society

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the role of information in the formation of human attitudes   in the context of a communication society. The topic determines the division of   the paper into three parts. The first part shows the significance of information in the   development of both an individual and society. The next section is devoted to the role of   information in forming attitudes. The third part discusses human attitudes as a factor that   contributes to the formation of a communication society.   The point of reference in the discussion of the issue is human infosphere, which   as the environment of information includes four major layers: logosphere (the layer of   the word), iconosphere (the layer of image), sonosphere (the layer of sound), and galenosphere   (the layer of silence). Each of the layers is a carrier of information, including   galenosphere because the understanding of perceived information as well as the ordering   and remembering of its meaning and message is dependent on silence. It needs to be   emphasised that the influence of information on attitudes largely depends on the structure   of a given infosphere. The structure is determined by the dominance of one of the layers,   the deficit of another layer, or balanced complementarity between the layers, when they   complement rather than exclude each other.   The paper posits that the formation of a communication society crucially requires   adequately formed attitudes of citizens. These attitudes to a large extent determine the   solutions to problems posed by the process of formation of such a society, especially the   problems of the concept of human as the most important component of a communication   society, of ensuring fair access to information to all members of the society, of practicing   dialogue, empathy, and the art of compromise.   Paedagogia_