Monologue or Dialogue in the Web Environment? - The Role of Networked Library and Information Services in the Future - 66th IFLA Council and General Conference - Conference Programme and Proceedings

Monologism and dialogism
In monologism, the individual is hold to be a Cartesian cognising subject, a self-disciplined monad or atom (Sampson 1993). Therefore, the monologic self is viewed as an independent and unique source of the meanings it has created. In pure monologism, concepts like collaborative learning or collective cognition do not make sense. The individual is the knower, the learner. Knowing is something internal, it is a subjective process. Knowledge, on the contrary, consists of objective universal facts. However, monologism is historically and culturally specific theory of a human subject, not a self-evident universal fact. The birth of monologism took place at the turn of the nineteenth century. It is linked to the rapid advancement of industry and capitalistic modes of production (Alasuutari 1992).

As opposed to monologism, dialogism stresses the intersubjective nature of language as a social system. According to dialogism, we produce and organise social reality by talking and writing. Dialogism assumes that knowledge is something people do together rather than an individual possession: "knowing is made and remade, reified and maintained, challenged and destroyed in communication: in dialogue, contest and negotiation" (Dervin 1994, p. 377). From this viewpoint it does not sound at all strange to talk about learning organisations or interactive learning environments, collective remembering or thinking institutions. A quote from a psychologist Jerome Bruner crystallises the central thrust of dialogism quite elegantly:

"Our culturally adapted way of life depends upon shared meanings and shared concepts and depends as well upon shared modes of discourse for negotiating differences in meaning and interpretation." (Bruner 1990, pp. 12-13.)