Search results

To provide a systems explanation of world wars as civilizational phenomena with a special focus on the cold war defined as an interaction war between two parties which cannot communicate with each other.

As a theoretical framework for this analysis an elaborated version of Luhmann's systems theory is used which discusses the relationship between systems and media. The method is defined as a third‐order cybernetics which entails first‐order observations, second‐order observation of observers, and finally their mutual observations as being observed.

Identifies the east‐west ideological conflict as a conflict within the world system of society by which the system is at war with itself. This “self” is considered as comprising two parts: self and other. The one is identified as an autopoietic system and the other as an allopoietic system, each struggling for the status of system and for the transformation of the other into its medium. The traditional understanding of the history of the European civilization as having one single ancestor is challenged.

It is not an exhaustive analysis but rather an outline of a theory whose purpose is to define the source of international and intranational confrontations.

The approach can be developed further and used for the analysis of the war on terrorism and the relationship between political system and social movements.

The paper offers an innovative systems perspective on world wars with a special focus on the cold war which promises to overcome the difficulties which their analysis with traditional sociological theories at present encounters.

To provide a theoretical context for the application of F. Geyer's work on alienation in highly complex societal environments to the study of the social and cultural impact of the mass media and cultural industries.

A macro‐sociological approach provides the ground for the insertion of Geyer's concepts of alienation and vicarious experience into Luhmann's theory of the mass media. The second‐order cybernetics conception of endogenous information is here taken as a systemic insight to the idea of experience in cultural studies and social psychology.

Provides a theoretical basis for the use of experience as an observational concept in the study of the social and cultural impact of media dynamics, posing interesting links with relevant current research issues in mass media, such as globalization and uncertainty management.

This is a theoretical work that demands future applications and research field in order to test coherence and potential.

This paper underlines the relevance of F. Geyer's work on alienation from the viewpoint of systems perspective to the current study of the mass media as a macro‐sociological reference phenomenon in social and cultural trends. It poses vicarious experience as an observational concept, thus providing a conceptual bridge between systemics and current cultural studies.

This paper poses a wide and original conceptual net that involves Geyer's work together with macro‐sociological current contributions (Giddens, Luhmann, Beck, etc.) in the context of media studies.

The theory of autopoietic social systems (Luhmann) is used as an explanatory framework for such historico‐sociological puzzles as the origins of social crisis, totalitarianism, the appearance of the crowd, the mass extermination of internal enemies (scapegoats), and the modern emergence of sociology itself. All of these seemingly incompatible phenomena have a connection with one particular emotion, namely, alienation, which is utilized as an integrative concept. On the basis of an elaboration of the concept of systems medium, social crisis is analysed as being solicited by a reduced availability of whatever systemic medium is most important in a given society.

In this volume we will present nine articles from the third conference of the European SSSI which was held on July 4–6 in Rotterdam in 2012. They come from a diverse range of countries such as Poland, Sweden, The Netherlands, and Germany. This collection shows a wide variety of qualitative methods and themes, such as sex-work in Poland, urban public places in the Netherlands, dancing during lunch break in Sweden, self-change in Papua New Guinea, immigration in Malta and the body online. When we look at the studies in this volume, it becomes clear that European scholars have been inspired by the SI tradition in various ways, which will be discussed briefly in this introduction.