Interesting thoughts Will. Are you suggesting something like a hierarchy of communication like Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Higher levels of the scale communication would not occur until other communication requirements are met. At a basic level we are all communicating feed and don't hurt me. Once that message is received we can discuss what car I should buy or even the nature of communication. I really like the elegance of this idea and I think it helps to explain a lot. Of course the model is far to simplistic to explain everything. As others have noted a lot hinges on our definitions of commercial and communicate. As I recall classic signal theory, the sender must have a message (something to say) that is sent in a media that can be transmitted (signal) and understood by a receiver. The signal's clarity or effectiveness is reduced by noise. For instance, there's some research (mostly Nielsen) that shows experienced net surfers simply ignore extraneous communication (usually commercial advertisements) on the pages they visit. That is unless the ad is particularly noisy. I've got a dancing ET as on one of my screens right now and it is hard to ignore. In the biological sense, do amoeba communicate? Does a baby in the womb do more than communicate its existence? Should a political advertisement be considered commercial? If I ignore it, is a political advertisement communication? I was intrigued with your focus on food in the context of commercial. As others have suggested, perhaps everything biological is commercial. Do I become commercial when I seek to earn more than I need for comfortable food and shelter? More questions than answers here. Hmmm, I suppose questions are communication. Thanks to all participating in this fun topic. Charlie Balch M.Ed., MBA, Ph.D. Professor of CIS Arizona Western College -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of William Bain Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 2:19 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Is all Communication Commercial? Hi, I've been thinking the comments on this over and it seems to me that for one thing commercial may not be exactly the same as economic. At base level, I blelieve all biological activitiy is economic because without constant nourishment the organism dies. Economics is thus a psychological constant, and even altruism reduces to a subject's own needs. But I think it's basically the economics feeding (nourishment) system that goes back to before birth. No mother, no life, in a sense. And once born, getting fed is largely a question of advertising. A few hasty humble stabs at the question............ Best regards, Will William Bain PhD Student Comparative Literature Department of Spanish Philology Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona --------------------------------- Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games. _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.10.5/899 - Release Date: 7/13/2007 3:41 PM