ELROY BOS, MSC.

CONSULTING AND TRAINING IN MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS 

elroy@elroybos.com  | 0490 851 429

Giving meaning

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Giving meaning

Ok communications people,

When asked, what communications actually is, one of the preferred answers is ‘giving and sharing meaning’. You are wrong.

Because people who give that answer are working for corporations, governments and NGOs. Giving and sharing meaning only have their place in the lifeworld. Once you are institutionalised, i.e. sell your soul to the corporate or non-profit devil, you are part of the system. Read Parsons, Luhmann, and Habermas to get my point.

The system – you are part of – has a formalised mandate, based on the public discourse of a time gone by, and you can only share meaning if you are willing to debate that mandate. If you don’t, and most of my colleagues do not, then you are an instrument of the status quo, your master’s voice and part of the colonization (Frankfurter Schule) and normalization (Foucault) of society.

Yes, it is that bad. You are pretending to be Robin Hood, but you are his master’s voice. What do I want? Go into that management meeting or the board room, and tell them times have changed. You need to engage on three levels. And not to mitigate or manage risks (Beck), but to change wisely.

Change slowly, or fast. But don’t stay the same. Because then you lose. And everytime you keep up the myth you are sharing meaning, you perpetuate the myth. And you lose time, and we don’t have time. Because change needs to happen now.