Exploration of the nature of human communication and the media is a pre requisite to any assessment of the likely future role of communications . . We cannot assume that the nature of these things is transparently obvious to everyone and therefore commonly understood. Three developments in recent decades should adequately warn against such an assumption. First, we had the fiasco of social scientists trying to apply Shannon's mathematical theory of information as if it were a theory of human communication. 'In Shannon's use of information we cannot speak of how much information a person has...

After explicating the analytical framework I will proceed to develop scenarios as follows: I. General scenarios -maladaptive and adaptive. 2. The future for the Western group of societies. Within this will seek to identify the main changes in the natures of work, leisure, family organisation, education and life styles. 3. The future for the major Asian powers, China, Japan and India. 4. A world scenario centred about the first two scenarios but also aimed to locate within this pattern the most probable future for sets of the smaller societies and under-developed countries. The scenarios will...