Changes of communication due to electronic media (Essay)

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How do the relationships and structures of communication change, due to the development of electronic media like TV, according to Luhmann?

Electronic media are media that utilize electronics or electromechanical energy for the end user (audience) to access the content. This is in contrast to static media (mainly print media), which are most often created electronically, but don't require electronics to be accessed by the end user in the printed form.

According to Niklas Luhmann the advance of electronic media like film and television had a far-reaching impact on the relationships and structures of communication. With the invention of film it became possible to directly capture objects in motion in real time. With the help of television these moving pictures could then be broadcasted to a very large number of viewers at relatively low cost. Now it was possible to watch something that had happened earlier. Reality could be recorded and reproduced.

The person watching a television programme is usually aware that what is shown is just a cliché of reality though. Natural situations then will be perceived and examined in contrast to what the person knows from watching a film or television programme. According to Luhmann one could conclude from this that the entire world could be considered to be communication.

Unlike in real situations (in which one communicates verbally or in written form) one does not have to respond to television. This means that television does not ask the viewer to take a decision on what is presented. Not having to decide on a clear ‘yes’ or ‘no’ viewers might tend to just passively consume television programmes. People can be touched by film and television (positively and negatively) of course, they can find a film good or bad, but viewers do not necessarily accept or reject the presented. On the contrary, it would be senseless to object to moving pictures or try to ‘destroy’ them as they are not real but just an alibi reality, a cliché of what is actually happening. Luhmann argues that the system of mass media is a set of recursive, self-referential programmes of communication, whose functions are not determined by the external values of truthfulness, objectivity, or knowledge, nor by specific social interests or political directives. Rather, he contends that the system of mass media is regulated by the internal code information / non-information, which enables the system to select its information (news) from its own environment and to communicate this information in accordance with its own reflexive criteria.

Moreover he argues that in many cases electronic media like film or television facilitate one-side, unilateral communication. Why is this? Partly it becomes inevitable due to technical devices being interposed in the communication process. In order to reach a larger audience electronic media are put in-between sender and recipient so that no longer a direct face-to-face communication can take place.

The sender of a message chooses its topic and form and, most important, when and for how long something is being broadcasted. These decisions take place according to what is personally considered to be most suitable. On the other hand the recipient makes a similar selection according to what he or she wishes to see and hear. Thus communication takes place as a cycle of mutual selection. It becomes obvious, Luhmann points out, that due to electronic media communication can be easily manipulated. Due to the electronic massmedia one sees the world like communication suggests. Still the alibi reality can never be as colourful and contrasty like reality. As mentioned before Luhmann is of the opinion that viewers do not have to individually imagine but just consume what is shown on television taking the presented (which is only one interpretation of reality) as a fact. Fading critical faculties and apathy might be dangerous consequences.

Apart from potential threats electronic media do have opportunities too. The reality of mass media, he argues, allows societies to process information without destabilizing social roles or overburdening social actors. It forms a broad reservoir (memory) of options for the future co-ordination of action, and it provides parameters for the stabilization of political expectations. In these respects, it has a crucial function in the general self-reproduction of society, as it produces a continuous self-description of the world around which modern society can orientate itself.

In his discussion of electronic mass media, Luhmann elaborates a theory of communication in which communication is seen not as the act of a particular consciousness, nor the medium of integrative social norms, but merely the technical codes through which systemic operations arrange and perpetuate themselves.