Document communication as a form of social communication

The article considers the notion of document communication in its relation to the notions of communication and social communication. The author analyses the approaches to the classification of communication types, to identification of its components - subjects, object, channel, etc. - and to construction of its models, to establishing the status and functions of document in the communication process. The author shares the interpretation of the document as the information, fixed on the material medium, with the requisites allowing to identify this information. The article shows that document communication has all communicative features and it is an independent kind of social formal communication with specially created social institutes (archives, libraries, publishing houses etc.). The subjects of document communication are represented by individuals, groups of people, the society in general; the object of communication is a message, the document information. The participants of document communication pursue socially relevant objectives-cognitive, stimulating and expressive. The communicative channel is a document as a material medium allowing not only to convey a message but also to keep it constant in space and time. The presence of such channel represents the specifics of document communication. The communicative process may imply different barriers (technical, psychological, social).