The first section of Chapter six is entitled ‘Social Dialogue for a New Culture’. In n.199 Pope Francis gives his understanding of dialogue — “Dialogue between generations, dialogue among our people, for we are that people; readiness to give and receive, while remaining open to the truth. A country flourishes when constructive dialogue occurs between its many rich cultural components: popular culture, university culture, youth culture, artistic culture, technological culture, economic culture, family culture and media culture.” This is a quote taken from his speech when he met with Brazilian Political, Economic and Cultural Leaders in Rio de Janeiro on the 27th July 2013. It is used here to present his outline of different cultures and how they can work together to attain the truth. Directly after this he spends nn.200-202 outlining how social networks do not fulfil the criteria for dialogue. In n.200 he says
“Dialogue is often confused with something quite different: the feverish exchange of opinions on social networks, frequently based on media information that is not reliable. These exchanges are merely parallel monologues. They may attract some attention by their sharp and aggressive tone. But monologues engage no one and their content is frequently self-serving and contradictory”. He goes on to develop that point in the next two articles before moving on to looking at ‘authentic social dialogue’.