Interpersonal Communication

Interpersonal political communication refers to episodes of political conversation and discussion that take place between the non-elite members of a political community. Often conceived as a basic form of political participation, it includes activities like conveying and receiving information on political matters, exchanging arguments about how they are to be evaluated, or attempting to convince others of certain points of view. In contrast to mass communication, interpersonal communication is not one-sided but bidirectional. At least in principle it provides all participants with similar chances to control its course. Instant feedback and constant readjustments of the flow of communication are always possible. The structure of its messages is complex and multidimensional, as it involves not only exchanges of verbal statements but also nonverbal metacommunication that may influence how explicit messages are processed. It has a large capacity to convey socioemotional content. Thus, on the whole interpersonal communication appears a richer form of conveying and receiving political messages than mass communication.

On the other hand, the range of coverage of any interpersonally conveyed message is far smaller. Interpersonal communication is decentralized and fragmented, and any particular content can be received by only a small number of addressees. In its capacity to expose large numbers of people at the same time to identical messages it is by far surpassed by the mass media. While modern mass media, especially the audiovisual media, address a politically indistinct audience that is large and socially heterogeneous, interpersonal communication tends to follow lines of social and political cleavage, operating mostly within rather than across structural segments of society. If mass communication functions as the great equalizer of modern society, interpersonal communication rather mirrors its pluralism and diversity. However, to the degree that mass communication provides interpersonal communication with its thematic agenda and frames for dealing with it, some standardization takes place there as well.