International communication: On the significance of borders in the digital borderless world

Abstract

In this Dialogue, we reproduce the discussions held during a plenary session that took place during the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference organized in Lyon in July 2023. Hosted by Tristan Mattelart, this session brought together four distinguished speakers who have all worked extensively, with different perspectives, on the processes of international communication: Yu Hong, Stefania Milan, Daya K Thussu, and Herman Wasserman. It addressed some of the most pressing issues in the field of international communication: the key role played by some global digital corporations in the building of the so-called digital “borderless” world, the latter’s growing multipolarity, the ambivalent nature of the transnational digital flows crossing it, and the continuing importance of borders and States.