Politisk kommunikation og Luhmann

Abstract
This thesis set out questioning the method by which political communication is
studied in modern society. Within the field a mainstream has proliferated, which foundations
rest upon the assumption of a systematic relationship between three parts, the citizens,
the politicians, and the media. The study suggests, that precisely these parts are and
should be more dependent on their relations with each other, than with others.
The thesis is centred on the German sociologist, Niklas Luhmann’s proposal to a
theory concerning modern society. The discussion of the problem, which is tackled in section
1, addresses what the consequences of the theory will have for the study of political
communication. The theory’s main argument, described in section 2, is that society today
is a globalised world society, which is differentiated accordingly to function. These functions
are practised within certain function systems, operating on the basis of communication.
The communication is specialised, and hence different for every function system.
This in turn means, that the function systems cannot communicate directly with each another.
Luhmann has pinpointed half a dozen such function systems, these include a function
system for political and one for the mass media. Hence, the mass media is incapable of
conducting a shared system with the politicians, and the citizens (and vice versa). Furthermore,
a problem arises because on one side, there is a normatively based wish to observe
the study of political communication as a coherent field of study, versus a polarised side,
which seeks a non-normative proposal to a theory about modern society, which excludes
the normative wish. The problem is thus a question of how political communication can be
depicted without a normative starting point, but instead with a foundation in Luhmann’s
proposal to a theory about modern society.
In addressing this question, section 3 includes a detailed account of Luhmann’s
suggestion to a theory about both the political and the media’s function systems. Section 3
goes beyond that to show that both these function systems solve their respective problems
concerning social order in such different ways, which in itself supports Luhmann’s notion
of the differences.
In the concluding section 4, a tentative suggestion is put forward to how political
communication could be studied through a use- and system-orientated theoretical research
perspective.
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