In The Reality of the Mass Media, Luhmann extends his theory of social
systems--applied in his earlier works to the economy, the political
system, art, religion, the sciences, and law--to an examination of the
role of mass media in the construction of social reality.
Luhmann argues that the system of mass media is a set of recursive,
self-referential programs of communication, whose functions are not
determined by the external values of truthfulness, objectivity, or
knowledge, nor by specific social interests or political directives.
Rather, he contends that the system of mass media is regulated by the
internal code information/noninformation, which enables the system to
select its information (news) from its own environment and to
communicate this information in accordance with its own reflexive
criteria.
Despite its self-referential quality, Luhmann describes the mass media
as one of the key cognitive systems of modern society, by means of which
society constructs the illusion of its own reality. The reality of mass
media, he argues, allows societies to process information without
destabilizing social roles or overburdening social actors. It forms a
broad reservoir (memory) of options for the future coordination of
action, and it provides parameters for the stabilization of political
reproduction of society, as it produces a continuous self-description of
the world around which modern society can orient itself.
In his discussion of mass media, Luhmann elaborates a theory of
communication in which communication is seen not as the act of a
particular consciousness, nor the medium of integrative social norms,
but merely the technical codes through which systemic operations arrange
and perpetuate themselves.
