Academic literature on the topic 'Luhmann, Niklas Social sciences Communication Communication'

The destruction of the Amazon rain forest is an issue defined primarily through the accounts of environmental journalists who find themselves caught between broad social and cultural forces. Environmentalism is a revolutionary paradigm which runs against traditional modernist tenets of science, but those domains are finding some areas of common ground. This project traces the significance of the tropical rain forest in terms of the social theory of Niklas Luhmann, who described ecological communication in terms of social differentiation and integration. Three separate domains of environmental discourse about the Amazon rain forest are identified in mass media: science, economics and politics. Originally, science defined the rain forest in terms of its taxonomy, then its biodiversity; in economics, the forest was understood in terms of the value of natural resources; and in the political sphere, the forest is defined variously in terms of the struggle over control of its development and/or exploitation. Labour activist Chico Mendes, who was killed in the struggle over the Brazilian forest, has been described as an eco-martyr, emphasizing his role in the struggle between opposing interests. Environmental discourse has strained to isolate causal responsibility for problems, but Luhmann reasons that cause-effect linkages are not always useful in clarifying complex issues. What emerge in the discursive traffic about the tropical rain forest are ideal conditions for the coalition and fragmentation of moral positions, and the cultivation of public anxiety, which the mass media fails to diffuse.

The German sociologist Dirk Baecker is one of the most prominent voices within contemporary social systems theory and German sociology, but is not well known within the wider circles of international sociology. He follows in the footsteps of Niklas Luhmann, yet in marked contrast with his ‘sociological master’ Baecker also gives ample attention to the notion of culture. This paper first summarizes some of the main lines in his writings on the notion of culture and on contemporary culture. It then continues with a succinct presentation of Baecker’s approach to artistic communication against the background of this more general characterization of the relationship between the individual and society, conscious sensory perception and communication, in terms of an ‘aesthetic coupling’. It will be shown that a recurrent figure of thought links up Baecker’s various considerations on culture and art, i.e. the inclusion of the excluded.

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to the sociological literature on moral communication and disciplinary apparatuses in a functionally differentiated society. It combines Luhmannian and Foucauldian theories to further the understanding of social system complexity. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on the work of Niklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault and others to explore resonance capability, disciplinary apparatuses and the complexity–sustainability trade-off. The argument is illustrated with a discussion of the late-nineteenth- to early-twentieth-century anti-child labor movement. Findings The paper argues that organizations are better equipped than function systems to draw moral distinctions. Given the amorality of the function systems and the increasing secularization of modern society, a great deal of moral communication now occurs in non-religious organizations. These social systems increase their complexity in response to new problems, but the increased system complexity may become unsustainable. Research limitations/implications The paper contributes to the growing sociological literature that compares and sometimes attempts to synthesize the theories of Luhmann and Foucault. It also contributes to the literature on organizational theory. Originality/value The paper brings together the work of Luhmann, Foucault, Valentinov and others to advance the understanding of organizations and moral communication in a functionally differentiated society. It uses Google Books Ngrams, among other resources, to support the argument.

Following a suggestion from Warren Weaver, we extend the Shannon model of communication piecemeal into a complex systems model in which communication is differentiated both vertically and horizontally. This model enables us to bridge the divide between Niklas Luhmann’s theory of the self-organization of meaning in communications and empirical research using information theory. First, we distinguish between communication relations and correlations among patterns of relations. The correlations span a vector space in which relations are positioned and can be provided with meaning. Second, positions provide reflexive perspectives. Whereas the different meanings are integrated locally, each instantiation opens global perspectives – ‘horizons of meaning’ – along eigenvectors of the communication matrix. These next-order codifications of meaning can be expected to generate redundancies when interacting in instantiations. Increases in redundancy indicate new options and can be measured as local reduction of prevailing uncertainty (in bits). The systemic generation of new options can be considered as a hallmark of the knowledge-based economy.

This article examines the problem of trans-subjectivity in Niklas Luhmann’s historical methodology. Trans-subjectivity, like inter-subjectivity, is understood in the humanities in different ways (N. Lossky, A. Bergson, I. Prigogine and others). Luhmann’s exploration of time leads him to devide it into “eternity” ( aeternitas ) and “system time” ( tempus ). Each manifestation of the latter is imbued with a special meaning that distinguishes one system time from another. History is reconstructed within the framework of the time dimension of meaning. These temporally measured meanings are the framework for reconstructing. This means that in historical methodology Luhmann essentially defended the principle of trans-subjectivism, although he denied the ontological positions of subject and object. In the framework of a forming system-communication approach significantly based on Luhmann’s historical methodology, trans-subjectivity becomes a new, more substantive and maximally realistic (and therefore more objective) understanding of the principle of historicism, when the past is viewed through the prism of the perception of a particular person, regarded as both the subject and the object of history. If in digital history such an ontological superposition is especially applicable thanks to the new conditions of an informal environment that allows for an almost total self-description of society (according to Luhmann), and records the digital footprints of social actions of the Ego , in non-digital traditional historical science it can also be used as a fertile conceptual scheme, and explanatory model.

Abstract To date, social vulnerability research has focused primarily on the individual and household levels, and on social institutions relevant to these two benchmarks. In this paper, a widening of the perspective of social vulnerability to natural hazards is proposed to include socio-structural aspects. For a number of reasons, the sociological system theory, which is inextricably linked with the name of Niklas Luhmann, is an obvious choice for this undertaking. Firstly, Luhmann developed a consistent social theoretical definition of risk, which has significantly influenced risk and hazard research in social science. Furthermore, the system theory provides a theory of society that claims to be able to cover all social levels and to describe all social phenomena. The system theory assumes that in modern society social systems are formed of communications. Therefore, in this paper the view is taken that a system-theoretical inspired concept of social vulnerability must also assess communication. First, this paper describes empirical observations about the vulnerability of social systems. This is achieved on the one hand through a categorisation of four forms of social vulnerability. On the other hand, it is based on examples of vulnerability to flood risks in selected social systems. Finally, consideration is given to a system-theoretical concept of social vulnerability that sees the sensitivity of a social system in each of the respective system structures. Vulnerabilities can only be observed for a particular social system, because the configuration of system structures differs from system to system. These fundamental considerations have to be further explored infuture work on a consistent social theoretical concept of vulnerability.

One of the most innovative features of Niklas Luhmann's theory resides in its allegedly circular construction: it starts from the assumption that even a theory of society itself is but a part of the object (society) that it aims to explain. Hence the relevance and crucial position of the issue of self-description. Using observation theory and second-order cybernetics, the paper briefly examines the epistemological presuppositions that are the basis for this position. It then turns to one of the aspects of the theory that reveals most clearly the consequences of this circular approach: the study of communication as applied to the system of science.

The concept of meaning and communication is the core of the sociological conception of Niklas Luhmann. As he claims, “Meaning is co-present as a reference to the world in everything that is actualized... Society is a meaning constituting system” (Luhmann Niklas. Theory of Society. Stanford University Press, 2012, vol. 1). He considers the issue of a correlation of meaning with other concepts of his theory of social in almost all of his works. Obviously, on this occasion the linguistic issues also became matters of consideration. Language, however, is associated by Luhmann not so much with the production of meaning as with communication. The concept of a linguistic sign as some fixed connection between the signified and the signifier is transformed by Luhmann into a dynamic operation of juxtaposing communicative and cognitive characteristics, as a medium between cognition and communication.

Universities are, like all organizations, at the intersection of different functional subsystems. They are not only dedicated to research (science) and teaching (education) but are also place for communications that form part of politics, economics and so on. But, what happens to universities, and, more precisely, social sciences in university, if the social system they work in is not differentiated in the way the social sciences in the Global North are used to? What if there is no clear distinction between science and politics? Does academic autonomy lead in this situation to some kind of ‘university as a subsystem’, complete with its own code and autopoiesis? Or will the different subsystems de-differentiate increasingly, as predicted by Luhmann? This contribution will analyse social sciences in Ecuadorian universities as an example for organizations at the intersection of functional systems that are not fully differentiated. The development, the operative closure, the institutionalization and the self-production of a concrete discipline under constant pressure of other social systems will be analysed. The goal is a further insight into processes of differentiation in the Global South and the role of institutions in these processes. Part of this is the attempt to actualize and criticize Niklas Luhmann’s approach of systems theory to regions outside of the Global North. JEL: O300, Z130

AbstractDiscourse about smart algorithms and digital social agents still refers primarily to the construction of artificial intelligence that reproduces the faculties of individuals. Recent developments, however, show that algorithms are more efficient when they abandon this goal and try instead to reproduce the ability to communicate. Algorithms that do not “think” like people can affect the ability to obtain and process information in society. Referring to the concept of communication in Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems, this paper critically reconstructs the debate on the computational turn of big data as the artificial reproduction not of intelligence but of communication. Self-learning algorithms parasitically take advantage – be it consciously or unaware – of the contribution of web users to a “virtual double contingency.” This provides society with information that is not part of the thoughts of anyone, but, nevertheless, enters the communication circuit and raises its complexity. The concept of communication should be reconsidered to take account of these developments, including (or not) the possibility of communicating with algorithms.

A presente pesquisa, eminentemente bibliográfica, visa apresentar e analisar alguns dos conceitos fundamentais da teoria dos sistemas sociais de Niklas Luhmann, que propõe um novo paradigma no campo da Sociologia e tenta superar as teorias sociais clássicas. Sistemas sociais, na acepção luhmanniana, são sistemas autopoiéticos, fechados operacionalmente e auto-referentes, formados a partir de uma diferenciação com o ambiente externo. Essa diferenciação ocorre com o estabelecimento de uma marca, que possibilita ao sistema estabelecer o que lhe pertence e o que não lhe pertence. Sistemas sociais operam a partir de processos comunicativos, que adquirem sentido a partir da rede recursiva interna, cujo acesso ao ambiente é fechado. O ambiente é formado pelos outros sistemas existentes e por informações desorganizadas. São apresentados os conceitos fundamentais da teoria para possibilitar a discussão de um aspecto específico: as relações inter-sistêmicas, principalmente por meio dos acoplamentos estruturais, mecanismo pelo qual um sistema utiliza, para colocar em funcionamento seus próprios elementos, as estruturas de um outro sistema, sem com isso, no entanto, confundir os limites entre eles. São relações inter-sistêmicas duradouras. Finalmente, temporalidade, racionalidade e limites da observação dos sistemas sociais são aspectos utilizados para a elaboração e apresentação de um conceito ainda inédito, o de processo sobrecomunicativo. O conceito visa explicar como podem ocorrer eventos de influência externa em sistemas autopoiéticos sem o abandono das premissas da teoria, como o fechamento operacional e a auto-referência. A estrutura formal da dissertação consiste em uma análise do funcionamento dos conceitos da teoria, observando a integração entre eles dentro do desenho geral, além de reflexões acerca de aspectos específicos dos conceitos que tratam da manutenção da integridade dos sistemas e de seu relacionamento com o ambiente e com os outros sistemas e da discussão do novo conceito apresentado, com a estruturação de seu funcionamento e a exemplificação de alguns de seus aspectos. Além disso, o trabalho contém também a tradução de um capítulo de um livro de Luhmann, que trata especificamente do conceito de acoplamento estrutural, para possibilitar o contato direto com o texto luhmanniano.
This thesis - based on bibliographic research - presents and analyzes some of the fundamental concepts of the Niklas Luhmann’s social systems theory, which proposes a new paradigm for the Sociology and intends to surpass the classic social theories. Social systems, in the luhmannian sense, are autopoietic, operatively closed and self-referred systems, emerged from a differentiation from the environment. This differentiation occurs with the establishment of a mark, which permits the system to recognize what pertains or not to the system. Social systems operate with communications that acquire meaning through the inside recursive net, which access is closed to the environment. The environment is formed by other existing systems and by disorganized information. The fundamental concepts of the theory are presented in order to introduce the debate about an specific aspect: the inter-systemic relationship, specially through structural coupling, the mechanism by which a system operates its own elements through the use of the structures of another system, meantime the limits between them are maintained. Structural couplings are long lasting inter-systemic relationships. Finally, the temporality, rationality and limits of the observation of the social systems are used for the proposition of a new concept: overcommunication. The concept intends to explain how external influences can occur in autopoietic systems without the abandonment of the premises of the theory, such as the operational closure and the self-reference. The formal structure of the thesis is as follows: an analysis of the functioning of the concepts of the theory, taking in account their integration into the general draw; reflections on specific aspects of the concepts which deal with the preservation of the integrity of the system and on the relationship of the system with the environment and with other systems and, finally, the presentation of the new concept, its structure, functioning and examples. A translation into Portuguese of a Luhmann’s text about structural coupling is attached.

In his systems’ theory, Luhmann attempts to redefine communication, and associates it with information. For Luhmann, communication is distinct from action (Handeln), and the rationality of the scientific system resides in the notion of Zweck, or in the ends of the sciences towards action. For the first time in the epistemological history of modernity, rationality is understood as a certain scientific purpose of action and not as the critique of scientific truth and validity of reason. The schism that Luhmann brought about between ‘traditional’ epistemology (reconsidered now as novel) and the ‘critical’ theory of science (seen by Luhmann as ‘traditional’) was irredeemable. In the following pages, I maintain that all evidence to the contrary such a divergence was inherent to modernity.Drawing on the Schützean model of multiple realities, Luhmann manages to blur the distinction between instrumentality and rationality by relativizing both within systemic complexity. According to Luhmann, complexity characterizes a multifaceted social system, such as science itself. However, I argue that where complexity, in Luhmann, interprets the systemic, it also employs presentism and partial situationalism to explain the essence and methodology of science as a system.