David Silver wrote:

What I'd like to see is some critical explorations of this relationship. Whether it exists or not is hardly under question; what it means and what the repercussions are -- now there's the rub.

I know of some theoretical work that critically "explores" some of these issues. I've found Arjun Appaderai's work useful on this issue. See for instance his "Introduction" to __Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization_. Much of this line of thought is built on Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood's seminal study _The World of Goods_ where the try to move away from notions of consumption as emulation (in the Thorstein Veblen sense of "conspicuous consumption") to consumption as a form of information management. This then allows one to see how contemporary communities use the products of capital to form communities through information exchange. Regarding the functionalism of the definition of "community" by the internal members of the community: Although frustratingly abstract, I find Niklas Luhmann's work on social systems the most elegant probe of this topic. For Luhmann, social systems reproduce themselves by using internal codes to distinguish the "inside" of the social system from the "outside". Thus the identity formation of a community is very much attached to how the community sees itself in an environment and thus implicated in the belief systems held by the community. _Social Systems_ is the magnum opus here, but his _Ecological Communications_ provides a much more manageable introduction to his thought. Also, there is finally a good secondary source on Luhmann in English, William Rasch's _Niklas Luhmann's Modernity: The Paradoxes of Differentiation_. best- Phillip Thurtle Department of Communication Program in the Comparative History of Ideas

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I.e., Luhmen is yet another social scientist who portrays societies as monoliths. While there may be sociological reasons for such notions, there certainly aren't empirical ones. --Christian Nelson

I think given the extensive definition of society that any and all empirical evidence would prove the case... I think one would be hard-pressed to find evidence contrary because it is really a definitional constraint ie all a are b, not an empirical one if it is a, then it is b. jeremy hunsinger jhuns@vt.edu on the ibook www.cddc.vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy www.dromocracy.com

I believe that one cannot define things into existence. Societies, as Luhmann, etc. define them, simply don't exist, or rather, only exist in the realm of the discourse of sociological theory and theorists rather than in the world of "commonsense" action.

I won't deny my idealist tendencies here but you can only define what exists, even if it is only a conceptual construction. I also concur that existence is not a predicate, which means stating "a" exists is not an argumentative point, it is an assumption gained by stating "a", adding existence does nothing, and worse causes problems by creating things like the ontological argument for god, etc. of course it is a bit more complicated. defining something that already exists is what I think Luhman is doing. I would argue though that societies as Luhman defines them, and it seems to me that there are variates here to deal with, always exist as long as humans exist. Disputing the definition is fine and providing evidence that a definition is wrong is great too, but it really just gives you the point that there are alternative interpretations, it does not necessarily prove non-existence. (warning general observation about the practice of theorists follow, it is not meant in reference to any specific individual) There becomes a point in time when one sits back and says in their own work and understanding of the world "either this theory works for my work or it does not", what they rarely follow up on is, "why does it work for her work and not mine?", this point is sort of moot because of the pragmatics of academic life, time, etc. Instead they get parochial and start thinking that my theory works and others do not, which seems to me to be a bit problematic, but that's just me. This discussion though becomes an argument eventually of whether or not one accepts that definition or accepts competing definitions. However, unless you are exceedingly strategic in the reconception or alternative theory that you use, it will probably collapse to another definition(or at least my opinion is that it could) which is probably a weaker system than some would like. now of course, I've wandered way off topic and will stop unless someone else chooses to continue:) jeremy hunsinger jhuns@vt.edu on the ibook www.cddc.vt.edu www.cddc.vt.edu/jeremy www.dromocracy.com

Phillip: First, I have no idea why my fingers typed out "Luhmen," but of course I meant Luhmann. Second, my characterization of Luhmann was based on and a direct response to your characterization of Luhmann, though none of the reviews I've read nor any of the parts of Luhmann's oeuvre I've skimmed seem to contradict your characterization. In particular, you characterized Luhmann as claiming that "the identity formation of a community is very much attached to how the community sees itself in an environment and thus implicated in the belief systems held by the community." Here, communities are presented as separately existing entities that "see themselves" and "have belief systems"--that is, they are entities like individual persons--entities which we generally regard as unitary even if we also regard them as presenting situated selves ala Goffman. (After all, Goffman invoked the concept of a "performer" behind a person's "character(s)" in _The presentation of self_). As for Luhmann's departure from this characterization in his works, and particularly in the ways mentioned, I cannot comment except to say that Luhmann wouldn't be the first scholar to have contradicted him/herself. Indeed, if I recall correctly, Murray Davis argues in "That's Classic!" (an article to be found in the journal _Philosophy of the Social Sciences_) that "classic" social scientific work is classic because, not in spite of, the fact that it is characterized by ambiguity and contradiction. Best, Christian Nelson Phillip Thurtle wrote:

Christian Nelson wrote:

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I.e., Luhmen is yet another social scientist who portrays societies as monoliths. While there may be sociological reasons for such notions, there certainly aren't empirical ones.

I hesitate to correct this misconception because I don't want to appear to uncritically endorse Luhmann's social theories (which I find flawed but useful for formulating empirical studies), but I think it would be a big mistake to let this misconception stand.

Leaving aside the simple distinction between "theory" and "empiricism", I am still trying to understand how someone can characterize Luhmann as portraying society as "monolithic"!

Perhaps we are thinking about different social theorists (I have never heard of a social theorist with the name spelled as Luhmen)? Are you thinking about the same thinker who first became known in the English speaking world for his critique of Habermas' notion of the public sphere as too unified in conception? (And isn't this similar to the critique you just leveled against "Luhmen"?)

Is this the same thinker who published an early work entitled _The Differentiation of Society_, whose primary thesis is that we have to conceive of social theories that take into account the functional differentiation of society?

Is this the same thinker that subsequently published the book _Ecological Communications_ that tried to show how similar discourses could "resonate" (thus showing marked similarity without exactly copying) in different disciplines _because_ of the different dynamics of these disciplines?

The reason why this is so important for the discussion at hand, however, is that Luhmann gives one the ability to look at how associations of individuals use discourse about "community" to construct a community by making the distinction about what belongs inside and what belongs outside of the community. Often current discussions of community need to portray large business as "outside" of communal discourse in order to construct a more "human" centered notion of community in technological environments.

The implication is that we need to be self-reflexive in our use of communities and pay attention to whose thoughts are not allowed within the "textual gates" of discourse that communities use to place themselves within larger social environments.

If you want to see how people have used Luhmann's work in empirical studies I suggest you quickly peruse _Problems of Form_ ed. by Dirk Baecker. Also, Luhmann applies his own analysis to mass media in _The Reality of Mass Media_.

best- Phillip Thurtle

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I'm fascinated by this conversation, partially because a professor of mine & i can't agree on the definition of 'community' for the life of us; since then, i've been grappling with an appropriate way to talk about the term since i throw it around so easily. As far as i can tell, 'community' surfaced (pre-14th century) to define a geographically bound set of people who depended on one another for physical & social needs; as travel was difficult, this meant intense inter-dependence. My guess is that, as mobility became an option, the term became colloquially amorphous. Individuals started making external connections, allowed 'others' to be brought into an individual's social network. People started having clusters of people that they valued for different purposes, no longer requiring the physical collective for all needs. Colloquially, i would argue that, instead of 'community' sticking with the geographical boundary, it became associated with one's social clusters emphasizing the physical/emotional dependence aspect of the original definition. I think that's where we get into trouble. As researchers, we want to give boundaries to a 'community' (regardless of how it's defined). I certainly think that's the problem when we talk about the end of community (i.e. Putman); i think that the boundaries evolve and we don't know how to measure that. Frankly, i'm not sure that we can define or bound 'community.' I think that when we try to measure or articulate it, we end up measuring attributes and articulating the output. I also think it's problematic if we define 'community' drastically different from the contemporary colloquial usage. In addition to researchers, i believe that individuals are incapable of creating 'community' boundaries. For example, an individual can tell you who is in hir social network, and s/he may place hirself within a "goa/raver community" but s/he can't tell you everyone who is in that community. I would argue that goa/ravers are a 'community' because not only do members share values, committment and cohesion, but they provide support, even to community members whom they've never met. [Personally, i find support purely based on a perceived shared community fascinating.] [This also raises an important question - who defines community membership when it stops being geographical?] I'd suggest that the collective defines but does not regulate the 'community' boundaries, invoking the term to mean a group of people with shared values, intimate and dense social connections. [Personally, i like Nisbet's definition: "all forms of relationship which are characterized by a high degree of personal intimacy, emotional depth, moral commitment, social cohesion, and continuity in time." I think it captures 20th century ideas of 'community.'] When we go digital, things are once again bound to change. For example, how does time & space affect one's sense of 'community'? I also think that people today don't feel as though they belong to just one community, making it easier for folks to feel as though they are part of the "Mac" community as well as the "eBay" community - each reflects a facet of the individual. I also think that companies play a fascinating role in defining community, not only by creating boundaries for particular collectives to converge, but also by seeing themselves as a community. One of the things that amazed me about the dotcom boom was startups inviting prospectives to be part of their corporate community, a use of the term that i feel almost invoked the 14th century version: live, eat, breathe, support - exclusively together. Also, as Bram mentionned, by trying to bound community, companies are also trying to regulate identity (the Passport phenomenon). Through things like Passport, they can define _who_ belongs to what communities. I have a rant on how this fails to recognize that 1) people belong to multiple communities; 2) people share different facets with different communities; 3) aggregation fails the individual and the community.. but i'll save that one for later. ::sigh:: procrastination over. oops.. this is a really long response to a slew of posts (but i'd love feedback 'cause this truly gets into my research) danah

"D. Silver" wrote:

It's also nice to know that folks are thinking about these issues, and I would be interested to hear about any published work on these matters. I agree - I think - with Bram when he says "The assumption that communities and commerce exist in an agonistic relationship is problematic. They don't, necessarily."

I think that personal/communal and commercial relationships do exist in an agonistic relationship for us *when we are aware that these two are being mixed*. Think of the hard feelings of some when they learned that they'd been made the target of an MCI telemarketer as part of MCI's friends-and-family campaign. True, that campaign was a success, but I'd argue that this is because a fair number of people to forget that this campaign was about making money and thought of it more as the simple (and even benevolent) facilitation of an opportunity to increase their personal/communal relationships with a communal group of friends and family. This in-line with a bit of research I've seen that indicates at least some folks generally see advertisements as benevolent informational messages. --Christian Nelson