Authenticity at the heart of communication

Extract

Just because a good speech often begins with a question. What was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023? Hint: Be true to yourself.

The correct answer is “authentic.” Does anybody remember the theme of the ICA 2023 Annual Conference? Yes, it was “Reclaiming Authenticity in Communication.”

What exactly is authenticity? Why has this concept suddenly become so popular that it was chosen as the Word of the Year? To define what authentic communication is, it may be helpful to first consider what inauthentic communication looks like.

Defining authenticity

In a now-iconic cartoon published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993, a dog sitting at a desktop computer with one paw on the keyboard looks at another dog on the floor and says, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” (Steiner, 1993). More than anything else, this image speaks directly to the revolutionary nature of the internet as a communication medium—it created a communication environment where anonymity was guaranteed, something that had previously been impossible except in special circumstances. This cartoon, which succinctly captured the defining spirit of the then-emerging medium, became the most reprinted cartoon from the magazine and broke auction records as the most valuable single-panel cartoon, selling for $175,000 (Binswanger, 2023).