Politics and Communication: Majid Tehranian

Book Title: Global Communication and World Politics
Author: Majid Tehranian

Majid Tehranian starts her book with a quote by Lao-tzu from Tao Te Ching (Chapter 29):

Those who would take over the earth
And shape it to their will
Never, I notice, succeed. The earth is like a vessel so sacred
That at the mere approach of the profane
It is marred
And when they reach out their fingers it is gone.

This book have great intentions and I share a lot of values and ideas with the author. A few quotes from this book will follow.

"Communication can act as a process of free and equal exchange of meaning, development of epistemic communities, and advancement of social solidarity, and hence of peace and harmony among individuals and nations [...] communication can also systematically distort perceptions by creating phantom enemies, manufacturing consent for wars of aggression while stereotyping and targeting particular ethnic groups or nations into subhuman categories. Communication empowers, but it empowers more those with greater competence and access to the means of communication. The ethical choice in communication is therefore focused on whether the communicator is aiming towards power-free understanding or systematic distortions and powerful manipulations (Habermas 1983)