Dialogue means the exchange of information between two or more human or machine memories with the goal of producing new information (Kommunikologie weiter denken, 2009, pp. 38–39). Dialogues are not conned to the exchange of conceptual messages, but are based on the principle of conflict. They serve mutual recognition (Versuch, eine phänomenologische Schau des Fernsehns glossenartig zu ballen, p. 4). Dialogical media are communication structures and media techniques within which and with which information is synthesized, whereby confusions, contradictions, feedback, and interventions are provided for in both circular and networked dialogues (Kommunikologie, 1996, pp. 29–34). Corresponding to the dialogue is the possibility of responsibility in the sense of responding to others’ messages (ibid., p. 295; Kommunikologie weiter denken, pp. 249–250).

The information owing between the I and the Thou defines individual responsibilities as well as the general responsibility of a society as a whole (Kommunikologie, p. 296; Kommunikologie weiter denken, p. 251). The original and genuine dialogue is the I–Thou relationship in the Judeo- Christian tradition (Buber, I and Thou, 1970, pp. 53–86; Kommunikologie, p. 293): the seeing and being seen of the other, in the sense of loving one’s neighbor, is the prerequisite for the dialogical community and dialogical existence that for Flusser can also be realized in a dialogue mediated by technology (Kommunikologie, p. 295; Von Subjekt zu Projekt [V.1], 1990, p. 5). Flusser assumes that even in this form of dialogue the Thou will become visible to the I as the presence of God (Kommunikologie, p. 295).

Original article by Guido Bröckling in Flusseriana