Hi Jespert, I´ve had same kind of experiences from few occasions when I´ve tried to explain the importance of applying Luhmann´s theories in Internet research ;-) Thank´s for the briefing about Lisbon conference. Robert Robert Arpo Researcher Arts Council of Finland Lainaus jespert <jespert@itu.dk>:

Dear All!

I have just returned home from the 5th international conference of sociocybernetics in Lisbon. It was a very successful conference academically, socially and culturally  here I will comment on the academic part and only on papers with regard to media studies using Luhmann. I do this to inform you about the existence of a field of media studies that I suppose that only few of you are familiar with  for example did I not have my paper accepted to the AIR-conference because the reviewers obviously did not understand it. All the papers will appear on the ISA RC 51 homepage in the future.

The papers will be described in random order:

Rudi Laermans, had a paper called: Media, Morality and Contemporary World Society: A Critical Appraisal of Niklas Luhmanns Systems Theoretical View. It gives a knowledgeable resume of Luhmanns theory of Mass Media. Rudi is critical regarding Luhmanns claim that the code of Mass Media is information /non-information and put forward the idea that the code could be attention and non-attention. Another idea is that Luhmanns clime, that Mass Media screen out the usual or the everyday should be nuanced in spied of the so-called reality television, which in most cases is daily life television.

Juan Miguel Aguado builds on Luhmann in his presentation: Mass Media, Spectacle and Modernity: From Meta-Experiential Narratives to Artificial Input Environments The paper argues that the media system introduces both experience and identity into market dynamics. On the basis of their functional segmentation from both technology and economy, mass media emerge as a social subsystem that operates uncertainty absorption by means of transforming individual and social experiential frames into meta-experiences. The media system implements the interest/non interest organizational code that specifically involves the re-entry of the code in both actor systems and social systems (the former, in terms of experiential events as interactions; the latter, in terms of commercial events as interactions). The communication pattern emerging from such transformation can be outlined under the concept of spectacle, which Miguel elaborates on.

Søren Brier had some interesting remarks with reference to Luhmanns theory on Mass Media in his presentation: Ficta: The New Scientific Novel. Søren said that Ficta which he defines as a new mode or type of science popularisation e.g. the works of Michael Crichton and Greg Egan. In a societal perspective this is one out of many examples on how we as scientist has to find new ways to communicate to fit in to the framework set by the mass media under pressure from politicians.

Giulia Caramaschi presented a paper called: Observing The Digital Divide: Technological Communication and the Semantics of World-Society. The paper claims that definitions of Information Society and Digital Divide can be considered as guidelines that society adopts to observe it self and direct its operations recursively. The Digital Divide, is seen as building at a semantic level, and becomes a parameter through which society describes its boundaries: access or non-access to technology outlines the criteria of inclusion and exclusion qualifying the structure of society.

Vessela Misheva presented a paper called: The Social Function of the System of The Mass Media. Vessela claims that Mass Media as described by Luhmann cannot be seen as a function system! The reason is that unlike all other systems, which have institutionalized permanent social roles that presuppose uninterrupted and continuous production processes, the system of the mass media has institutionalized what Goffman termed a discrepant social role. According to Vessela, in principle, discrepant social roles cannot support the emergence of an entirely new social system. The latter becomes possible only when the discrepant role becomes modified and is transformed into a permanent role. Vessela put forward the idea that an additional social role can be assigned to the mass media, namely, that of conflict-management.

Michael Paetau presented a paper called: Information Technology and The Long-Term Memory of Society. This paper asks: How it is possible to make knowledge which is generated in separate contexts, in specific localities, and bound to specific actors, available to the system as a whole? And analyses successful transformation of knowledge as coupled to three conditions: first, to a condensation of social experience and its decontextualized sedimentation in a suitable storage media; second, to the effective transfer of this sediment respecting factual, spatial, temporal, and social aspects; third, to the (re-)actualization of the knowledge sediments in practical problem-solving situations, which commonly differ from the original knowledge generation context.

My own presentation (Jesper Taekke) was called: Usenet Newsgroups as Mediated Communication Systems But was mostly in the oral presentation about the theory that I am building on: The Media Sociography My claim is that we can build on Luhmann regarding media studies but that we when talking about technical media must integrate the so called Toronto school (Innis, McLuhan, Ong, Eisenstein, Meyrowitz etc.) in the analysis  and I presented a possible framework to do that.

Best Regards Jesper

-- Jesper Tække - MA. Ph.D.-Student - IT University of Copenhagen - Dept. of Digital Aesthetics & Communication - Glentevej 67 - DK-2400 NV Copenhagen NW - Phone +45 3816 8888 - Direct +45 3816 8881 - Fax +45 3816 8899 - http://home16.inet.tele.dk/jesper_t/ - e-mail: jespert@it-c.dk

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