(con)juncture

Communication as a person-to-person activity became thinkable only in the shadow of mediated communication. Mass communication came first ... Miscommunication is the scandal that motivates the very concept of communication in the first place.
(John Durham Peters, Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication)

Everybody can give you the proper nightmare, or the proper story of the human subject alienated from the world. Everybody knows how to run that story by. But if you start talking to people about how they cook their dinner or what kind of language you use to describe trouble in a marriage and you’re very likely to get notions of tape loops, communication breakdown - you’re likely to get amazing stuff.
(Donna Haraway in conversation with Hari Kunzru, 1996)