The Communication Person: A New World Voice For the People by the People

In the "new epoch" we are living, Afrocentric communicationist and theorist Molefi Asante states that "The communication person repudiates cryptic views of humanity." Communication is the "gluon," or basic fundamental particle of society. The "communication person" is the "new world voice", the "holistic" conveyer of a new model, a new formula for postulating a true, all-inclusive view of the "abstract" society. This harkening of an holistic view is an open perspective defined as "characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable (able to be accounted for or understood) by reference to the whole." The "whole" of humanity is the focal point of consideration of Asante's article on Afrocentric communication theory. Not only is Asante postulating a theory of inclusiveness of one more genre of society into European consideration, but he asserts for academia that all the sciences must to do away with analogue, and the inadequate models of analysis of society. Afrocentric communication is comparable to various and certain postulations of feminist theory and queer theory that doubt the validity of the foundational concepts of analysis, questioning the core view of human perspective. Asante and Hooks propose a "new" ethnocentrism that is related to post-colonial theory because the old views, perspectives, postulations, theories, models, formulas, analyzation, assumptions are all outdated, incoherent, inadequate, insufficient, not relative to the new communication person in this new epoch. Asante, among others, is a modern Sophist, recognizing the foundational qualities and conditions of communication, i.e. language, which is the beginning and the end of all thought, production, recognition, consideration, and desire. Asante echos the concepts, ideas, and postulations of modern day theorists Derrida and Foucault. Asante is not an idealist, he comprehends the history of understanding humanity; however, his point now is the assertion of the questioning of "Our conceptualization of humanity" within theoretical communication and formulations. Basically Asante abhors "myopic" considerations of humanity, a view defined by a "lack of imagination, foresight, or intellectual insight." He calls for a new view, a fresh consideration, presenting the facts that support this concept as necessary and vital for communication people that make up our diverse society; ideas for the people, by the people. Asante proposes that communication theory "needs to break away from the boundary of specific social or political systems and reach for universal assumptions which can then be tested by those interested in applying them to particular situations." What must be called into question under the new perspective is "Any society that distorts, hinders or damages the human personality." First and foremost is a contemporary questioning and re-analyzation of the definitions of "society" and even "human," that is basic to Asante's theorization here, which is an immediate connection with post-colonial theory, and a forerunner for the critique of digital rhetoric. An issue leading the race for understanding and critiquing digital rhetoric, as Jenkins clearly exemplifies in Convergence Culture, is the recognition and in-depth analyzation of the communication person and what the communication personal develops, effects, is affected by, and the data and results within.