Mass Media System As Described By Niklas Luhmann - Essay Example

Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of the Mass Media System There is an increasing significance and accessibility of the mass media to the public. The mass media comprises of all institutions which utilize copying technologies to disseminate information, including broadcasting. They include the printing press which produces books, newspapers and magazines, and all types of electronic or photographic copying procedures. However, the target groups for their large volumes of their products are usually undetermined. Niklas Luhmann’s theory of ‘The Reality of the Mass Media’ is an extension of his theory of social systems into analyzing the role played by the mass media in creating a social reality. It reveals the twofold reality of the media between its own internal system and the reality it provides for the society externally. According to Luhmann, the mass media is made up of recursive, self-referencing communication programs whose functions are not directed by external values of knowledge, truthfulness or objectivity, political directives or specific social interests. Instead, Luhmann agrees that the functioning of the mass media is directed by the internal code information/non-information which allows the system to choose its information/news from its own environment. The mass media then communicates this information depending on its own reflective criteria (Luhmann 36). The basis for Luhmann’s theoretical construct was public suspicion of the mass media. According to Luhmann, we get to know about our society and the world in general through the mass media. This also includes our knowledge on nature. However, we are not in a position to trust this information because of the many things that we know about the mass media. This creates a contradiction which basically forms the unique modern and productive features of the mass media. First, the mass media can be compared with other social systems like science, law, business and politics which form operationally closed systems. Secondly, the cognition of mass media is self-referencing and closed. This is a feature that is only found in systems. This means that they have not distinguished the reality which they communicate daily reports, news and advertising as expected from the image they present. Instead, they create it. Although the created reality arises selectively, it is socially relevant and maintains its validity as long us we understand how it is developed, produced and consumed. The usual way of dealing with the contradiction in the mass media is to suspect that there is some form of manipulation in the information presented (Luhmann 43). Usually, the mass media develop their products by manufacturing them in enclosed environment. There is no public access to the room in which communication takes place. This interruption of direct contact between the mass media and their consumers gives room for high degrees of freedom of communication. It creates a surplus of possibilities for communication to the public. This surplus can only be regulated within the mass media system through self-organization and its own constructions of reality. Marshall (132) reveals that there are usually no consequences for such manipulation of information by the media because information acquired though the mass media usually fits into one another, as if it is of its own accord, forming a self-reinforcing structure. Despite being self-referencing, the mass media is one of the major cognitive systems in the modern world in which a society develops the illusion of its own reality. Even if all information from the mass media would carry a warning indicating that it was open to doubt, the information would still be used by the society as a foundation or starting point. Such a perspective serves to strengthen the two fold reality presented by the media. Luhmann argues that the reality of the mass media enables societies to process information without overburdening social actors or creating a change in social roles. According to Luhmann, the mass media forms a broad storage/memory of options that can be used by a society for coordination of actions in future. At the same time, the mass media give a continuous self-description of the modern world in which a modern society can align itself. This provides parameters which can be used by a society to stabilize its political reproduction. The issue arising out of this is the validity of the information reserves contained in the mass media because it impacts on the decisions that a society can arrive at (Luhmann 51). In the mass media, there are two selecting factors which are at work. These are, the amount of interest in tuning in and extend of willingness to transmit. The two factors cannot be centrally coordinated. This situation leads to differentiation and standardisation of their programs. This in turn determines how the various participants receive what they need or what they believe they want to know from the range of programs that are of offer. For example, what they need to know as teachers, politicians, students or patients. This makes its mode of operation to be subject to external conditions. This imposes a limit on what the mass media is able to realise. According to Alexander (48) the role of the mass media is to provide communication about various issues in the society. However, their mode of operation does not fully meet the definition of communication because in most cases, it involves mere uttering or writing of things without a direct response of the recipients or interaction with the recipient. This makes it hard for the mass media to determine their target groups. They have to experiment with possibilities and seek out for willing audience. They have to substitute assumptions for obvious presence of audience. Reporting According to Luhmann (52), the mass media usually commit selected norm violations when reporting. This is done if the violations can be accompanied by moral judgments or in essence, when they are in a position to demonstrate a respect or disdain for persons. Though we may suspect that mass media selectively creates some form of reality when manufacturing their products, this suspicion usually remains vague as long as we do not have tangible evidence. The evidence is usually furnished by the media themselves. This has led to occasional breakdowns in which the public has to bear with. For example, a media group can conduct an interview with a politician. Interestingly, what the journalist will present to the public as the results of the interview may carry a totally different version of the story. In this case, there is no evidence to proof against what the journalist indicates verses what the politician said. It leads to uncertainties especially if such a conversation was picked up by another person or a satellite without the two individuals being aware. The public will be put in a dilemma of who is speaking the truth and who has presented manipulated information. The situation is made worse when two or more different media groups present at a particular event give different reports concerning the same subject. Under such situations of contrasting information, the public is not in a position to know which media report is true, half true or not true at all. It creates a high level of distrust and suspicion of the media by the public. Contrary to its norm violation, the mass media is usually in the front line advocating that people stick to social norms and exposing violators of social norms. However, this does not mean that the mass media is in a position to fix ethical/moral principles or raise the standards of ethics towards good behaviour. What the mass media is able to do concerning violation of morals is mere provision of irritation to the society. In order to make the readers or listeners recognise this norm violation and form an opinion, the mass media favour things that attribute to action to the actors (Alexander 56). The media do not give a picture of the complex background/underlying factors or circumstances which could have triggered, motivated or forced the actor do what they did. They do this so as to avoid a shift in credit or blame. This creates fame for the mass media because the society views it as an important tool for exposing such matters. In order to present to the society lack of awareness of normality of deviance, the mass media uses suitably selected violations. This strengthens a sense of outrage. They do this through a mere reporting as opposed to attempts of indoctrination or sermons, which are risky. This makes the public to reach to a conclusion of saying ‘not so’ (Schudson 256). Coding In his examination and discussion of the mass media, Luhmann also explains a theory of communication. According to this theory, communication is seen as mere technical codes via which systematic operations arrange themselves and ensure their continuity. It is not a medium of integrative social rules/norms nor an act of a particular consensus as expected. A distinction of information and non-information is the code system used by the mass media. The system uses a binary code system in order to distinguish values into positive and negative yet giving no room for any third possibility. According to Luhmann (56), mass media works with information. According to the system, information is the positive value with which the system determines the possibilities of its own operation. This enables the system to distinguish itself from the environment and to make its own selection as a way of reducing complexity. The media also uses such a coding to avoid being placed at the mercy of everything that comes along their way. However, the media has sidelined all they view as not information. This should not be so because knowing non-information is also regarded as informative. Concerning reflexive values of codes, the mass media usually goes into an infinite regress. For example, immorality must be addressed as immorality in a moral way. In this case, it allows it operations to be determined by conditions it cannot determine by itself as a system. The problem of mass media going into regress is that a time comes when ultimate explanations are required yet the mass media does not have time to provide such explanations (Johnson 637). Conclusion It is evident that there is a problem of a system’s code in the mass media. The public largely depend on the mass media so as to be informed in various things and situations. However, a dilemma arises as to whether to believe the highly information given by the mass media or not. This is because of what the public already know about the twofold reality presented by the mass media concerning the nature of its own internal system and the reality it provides for the society externally. This has created a perpetual suspicion of information manipulating by the mass media. The system should therefore respond to suspicions of untruthfulness in its every day operations. Works Cited Alexander Jeffrey (1981). ‘The Mass News Media in Systematic, Historical and Comparative Perspective’ in Eliud Katz and Tamas Szecsko, eds, Mass Media and Social Change.Online. http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=TJVJ_sUZd48C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Niklas+Luhmann%E2%80%99s+theory+of+the+Mass+Media+System.+references&source=bl&ots=upZU4_etmT&sig=pgIq-29V7liC542Cl5fyaXJk34c&hl=en&ei=rjGQTYmUM9DXcY2r7PgJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 28th March, 2011. Johnson Harry ‘The Mass Media Ideology, and Communication Standards’ in Jan J. Loubser et al. Explorations in General Theory in Social Sciences: Essay in Honour of Talcott parsons. (Vol. 2). New York. The Free Press, 1976. Luhmann Niklas. The Reality of the Mass Media. Stanford. Stanford University Press, 2000. (170pp) Marshall McLuhan. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge. The MIT Press, 2001. Schudson Michael. Discovering the news: A social History of American newspapers. New York, Basic books. 1978. Read More