The three dimensions of meaning of social systems in context of human being and contemporary mass media

Abstract

The article examines conceptual issues that arise during the study of the theory of social systems of the contemporary German sociologist and philosopher Niklas Luhmann. These issues are connected, first of all, with the place of human being in social systems in condition of abandoning the concept of the active subject, and, secondly, with the active development of new communication’s mass media, related to the functioning of the World Wide Web, as well as the system-functional effects of these processes. For this, the methodological guidance of Luhmann is used: any self-description or research within the frameworks of the systems theory has to exist in the three dimensions of meaning: social (communication), temporal (evolution) and functional (differentiation). The description of the place of humans in social systems is based on the form of “person” introduced by Niklas Luhmann, phenomena of language and memory, as well as the double contingency and distinction of symbolically generalized communication media. Additionally, the main principles of systemic differentiation and their influence on the forms of modern society are described; for this the phenomena of integration/disintegration, inclusion/exclusion, ”Old-European” forms of society, factors leading to functional differentiation, and structural coupling are considered. Finally, the influence of contemporary media is considered on the example of the phenomenon of woke-culture and protest communication. Also, it is suggested that the subsystems of society, first of all economics and politics, are able to corrupt each other