1. Social Systems Theory
#3 Media and Code for Communication
Takashi Iba
Associate Professor
Faculty of Policy Management
Keio University

2. Social Systems Theory 2012
Reflection

3. “How is social order possible?”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.3, p.116, l.22

4. Psychic System
the nexus of
consciousness

5. Each system is operationally closed
(Consciousness cannot be imported
/ exported to another system).
Psychic System
Psychic System
the nexus of
consciousness
the nexus of
consciousness

6. Social Systems Theory 2012
Class #2 Keywords
Double Contingency Communication
Communication
Perception of little movement of others help them Utterance
to expect the other’ s decision.
Expectation of
Expectation of the decision
the decision of Actor A
of Actor B Information Understanding
(contingent) (contingent) (contingent)
Actor A Actor B

7. Double Contingency
Each Actor cannot make decision
because it is depend on the alter’ s decision.
Expectation of
Expectation of the decision
?
the decision of Actor A
of Actor B
? ?
?
Actor A Actor B

8. Talcott Parsons thought ...
Shared Norm / Culture
Shared Norm or Culture helps them to expect
the others decision.
Expectation of
Expectation of the decision
the decision of Actor A
of Actor B
Actor A Actor B

9. Niklas Luhmann thought ...
Perception of little movement of others help them
to expect the other’ s decision.
Expectation of
Expectation of the decision
the decision of Actor A
of Actor B
Actor A Actor B

10. Communication
as the synthesis of three selections:
information, utterance, and understanding
Communication
Why it is uttered
Utterance
Information Understanding
What is uttered
(contingent) (contingent) (contingent)
Communication-Centered Viewpoint
(Not Human-Centered)

12. Social Systems Theory 2012
Mission-Driven Dialogue Book Reading

13. Today’s First Dialogue
What do you think
when reading these books?

14. Social Systems Theory 2012
Mission-Driven Dialogue Book Reading

15. Social Systems Theory 2012
Class #3 Keywords
Three Kinds of Three Kinds of
Improbabilities Media
Improbability of
Understanding
? language
Utterance
communication language
Information Understanding
Improbability of Improbability of communication symbolically generalized
Reaching Success Utterance communication
communication media
Improbability of Reaching
Utterance
Information Understanding
Information Understanding
media of dissemination

16. Social Systems Theory 2012
Mission-Driven Dialogue Book Reading

17. Communication
as the synthesis of three selections:
information, utterance, and understanding
Communication
Why it is uttered
Utterance
Information Understanding
What is uttered
(contingent) (contingent) (contingent)

19. Three Kind of Improbabilities

20. Improbable

21. Overcoming Improbabilities

22. “Seen in the context of evolutionary
achievements, communicative success is
exceedingly improbable. Communication
presupposes beings that exist independently,
with their own environments and their own
information-processing apparatuses. Every being
sifts and processes what he perceives for
himself. Under such circumstances,
how is communication, that is,
coordinated selectivity, possible at all?”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.157, l.30

23. Each system is operationally closed
(Consciousness cannot be imported
/ exported to another system).
Psychic System
Psychic System
the nexus of
consciousness
the nexus of
consciousness

24. Improbability of Understanding
Improbability of
Understanding
?

25. “At the zero point of evolution, it is, first of all,
improbable that ego understands what alter
means-given that their bodies and minds are
separate and individual. Only in context can
meaning be understood, and context is, initially,
supplied by one's own perceptual field and
memory.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.158, l.12

26. Improbability of Reaching
Improbability of
Reaching

27. “The second improbability refers to reaching the
addressee. It is improbable for a communication
to reach more persons than are present in a
concrete situation... The problem lies in spatial
and temporal extension.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.158, l.22

28. Improbability of Success
Improbability of
Success

29. “The third improbability is success. Even if a
communication is understood by the person it
reaches, this does not guarantee that it
is also accepted and followed.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.158, l.35

30. “Communication is successful only if ego
accepts the content selected by the
communication (the information) as a premise
of his own behavior. Acceptance can mean
action corresponding to the directives
communicated, but also experience, thinking, or
processing further information under the
assumption that certain information is
correct. Communicative success is the
successful coupling of selections.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.158, l.38

31. Three Kind of Improbabilities
Improbability of
Understanding
?
Improbability of Improbability of
Success
Reaching

32. “These three improbabilities are not only
obstructions to the reception of any given
communication, not only difficulties in attaining a
goal; they operate as thresholds of
discouragement. Anyone who believes that
communication is hopeless lets it pass. Thus one
must expect that communication as such does
not occur, or if it does occur, that it will
be eliminated in the further course of
evolution.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.159, l.6

33. “The immanent improbabilities of the
communicative process and the way in which
they are overcome and transformed into
probabilities regulate the construction of
social systems.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.159, l.17

34. Today’s Second Dialogue
Improbability of
Understanding
?
What are three kinds of improbabilities
on communication?
Improbability of
Reaching
Improbability of
Success

35. “We would like to call media the evolutionary
achievements that enter at those possible
breaks in communication and that serve in a
functionally adequate way to transform what is
improbable into what is probable.
Corresponding to the three types of
communicative improbability, one can distinguish
three different media that mutually enable
one another, limit one another, and burden
one another with consequent problems.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.160, l.14

36. ways of
transforming
what is improbable
into
what is probable
media

37. Three Kinds of Media

38. Three Kinds of Media
1. Language
2. Media of dissemination
3. Symbolically generalized communication media

39. Language
language communication language
Utterance
Information Understanding

40. “The medium that increases, the understandability
of communication beyond the sphere of
perception is language. Language is a medium
distinguished by the use of signs. It uses acoustic
or optical signs for meaning.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.160, l.20

41. “this concerns a very special technique with the
function of extending the repertoire of
understandable communication almost
indefinitely in practice and thereby guaranteeing
that almost any random event can appear and
be processed as information.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.160, l.31

42. Media of dissemination
communication
Utterance
Improbability of Reaching
Information Understanding
media of dissemination

43. “As a result of language, media of dissemination,
namely, writing, printing, and electronic
broadcasting, have developed.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.1

44. “These developments in language and
dissemination techniques make it even more
doubtful which communication will succeed and
be able to motivate acceptance.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.14

45. Symbolically generalized communication media
symbolically generalized
communication media
communication
Utterance
Information Understanding

46. “Success ... lay ... in the development of
symbolically generalized communication media,
which are functionally adequate to this
particular problem.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.21

47. “We would like to call "symbolically generalized"
the media that use generalizations to symbolize
the nexus between selection and motivation,
that is, represent it as a unity.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.25

48. “Important examples are: truth, love, property /
money, power / law; and also, in rudimentary
form, religious belief, art, and, today, standardized
"basic values." ”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.27

49. “In all these cases this in a very different way
and for very different interactive constellations
is a matter of conditioning the selection of
communication so that it also works as a means
of motivation, that is, so that it can adequately
secure acceptance of the proposed selection.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.30

50. “The most successful and most relevant
communication in contemporary society is
played out through these media of
communication, and accordingly, the chances of
forming social systems are directed toward the
corresponding functions.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.161, l.34

51. “One has to understand the process of
sociocultural evolution as the reshaping and
widening of the chances for foreseeable
communication, as the consolidation of
expectations out of which society can form
its social systems.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.159, l.20

52. “Language, media of dissemination, and
symbolically generalized communication media
are thus evolutionary achievements that
interdependently ground the processing of
information and increase what can be produced
by social communication. This is how society
produces and reproduces itself as a social
system.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.162, l.3

53. Three Kinds of Media
language communication language
Utterance
Information Understanding
communication
Utterance
Improbability of Reaching symbolically generalized
communication media
Information Understanding communication
Utterance
Information Understanding
media of dissemination

54. “Once communication is set into and kept in
motion, the formation of a bounded social
system cannot be avoided, nor can the
development of further bounded social systems
produced by the transformation of expectations
about what is improbable into what is
sufficiently probable. On the level of social
systems, this is an exclusively autopoietic
process, which produces what enables
it itself.”
N. Luhmann, Social Systems, Stanford University Press,
1996 Chap.4, p.162, l.7

55. Overcoming Improbabilities
Three Kinds of Media
1. Language
2. Media of dissemination
3. Symbolically generalized communication media

56. Today’s Third Dialogue
What are three kinds of media for overcoming
improbabilities on communication?

57. Social Systems Theory 2012
Class #3 Keywords
Three Kinds of Three Kinds of
Improbabilities Media
Improbability of
Understanding
? language
Utterance
communication language
Information Understanding
Improbability of Improbability of communication symbolically generalized
Reaching Success Utterance communication
communication media
Improbability of Reaching
Utterance
Information Understanding
Information Understanding
media of dissemination

58. Social Systems Theory 2012
Preview

59. Code and Program for function system
Code A / Non-A
ex.
Mass Media: information / non-information
Economy: payment / non-payment
Law: legal / non-legal (illegal)
Science: true / non-true (false)
Program ex.
Programs used by Mass Media
- News
- Entertainment
- Advertising
(code: information / non-information)

60. Functional Differentiation of Modern Society
Economy Law
Academics Politics
Society
(Social System)
Art Religion
Education Mass Media