Meaning Overflow and Calculus

Digitization is a new medium of the dissemination of communication. It produces an overflow of meaning for which the structure and culture of society are not prepared. This paper explains the idea of ‘meaning overflow’ in the context of four known media epochs of society, i.e., the oral, the alphabetical, the literate and the current electronic and digital media epoch, and looks for the structure and culture of society that emerge to deal with this overflow. A new structure of society is emerging, one of networks, and a new culture of society is emerging, one of complexity. These new structures and cultures add new layers to the already known and still present structures and cultures of earlier media epochs. The paper concludes with the prospect of a calculus of communication, capable of calculating forms within the medium they use and produce.