COMMUNIO AND COMMUNICATIO: THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION FOR PARTICIPATING IN PUBLIC LIFE

The article discusses the issue of man’s participation in public life in the context of communication processes which play an important role in shaping the consciousness of community. Every community exists because of the relationships between the people involved in it. Thus, communication is the most perfect way for people to express themselves within the community. This relational dependency between the community and communication becomes the core of public participation. Persuasive communication plays the dominant role there, which is significantly important at the moment of message authentication. Persuasive communication has its foundation in the art of rhetoric and has been present in public life since the ancient Greece. Today, however, the mass media seem to dominate the communication in society by using means of persuasion and the public discourse detached from the context of interpersonal relationships.