Communication is at the heart of who we are as human beings. It is our way of exchanging information; it also signifies our symbolic capability. These two functions reflect what James Carey characterized as the transmission and ritual views of communication, respectively.9 Carey recognized that communication serves an instrumental role (e.g. it helps one acquire knowledge) but it also fulfils a ritualistic function, one that reflects humans as members of a social community. Thus, communication can be defined as the symbolic exchange of shared meaning, and all communicative acts have both a transmission and a ritualistic component.