RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

of labour and decision-makdng of sell-management society, becomes a form of political communication of working people, and, with new social relations, communication (as an element of political power) becomes more self-managing and democratic. C ommunication as a whole system of intercourse in one societv is the Unkihg of all social spheres and all institutions on all levels within the framework of a single public. The public of self-management sociaUsm is the social sphere in which working peopie, assembled in their basic communitites (working, territorial, communities of interest and so on) make direct decisions on social reproduction and their own lives. The public (at least as conceived normativelv) is epuated with the delegate base. The public of associated labour and the whole delegate base makes direct decisions in its basic self-management cells and at the same time sends its delegates to higher levels of decision-making, to assemblies of socio-political communities. From this also stems the new function of pubiic opinion as an instrument of establishing successful communication of the delegate base on all levels of decision-making and as the non-institutional critical forces of the delegate base. 2 Inter-republic communication should, then, be defined in the framework of the specific nature of the information and communications svstem and the public of self-management socialism. It should first be defined what this concept includes. It is clear that inter-republic communication is an integral part of a broader, sociologicallv-based categorv: ”inter-cultmal communication”. I nter-cultural communication encompasses all forms of interaction between people of different cultures; it is a process of transmitting messages between nations divided by state boundaries, and between nations within the framework of state boundaries. It is then a phenomenon tvpical not onlv of our state but one of the essential problems of all multinational countries (both civil and socialist), and even

2 France Vreg, Funkcija javnog mnjenja u delegatskim odnosima, Savetovanje Javno rnnjenje u samoupravnom društvu”, Beograd March 1975, p. 21.