No More Learning

This is how, in the sphere of the mass media, an autopoietic, self-reproducing system is able to emerge which no longer requires the mediation of interaction among those co-present. It is only then that operational closure occurs, with the result that the system reproduces its own operations out of itself; it no longer uses them to establish interactional contacts with the environment internal to society,5 but is instead oriented to the sys- tem's own distinction between self-reference and other-reference. In spite of having a huge memory capacity, the system is set up to remember and forget quickly.
The systems theoretical distinction of self-reference/other-refer- ence does not tell us anything about how the self determines the self, or, to put it differently: how the connectivity of operations in the system is recognized and how the difference of system and envir- onment is produced and continually reproduced. For function sys- tems, and thus also in the case of the mass media, this typically occurs by means of a binary code which fixes a positive and a nega- tive value whilst excluding any third possibility. 6 The positive value refers to the connectivity of operations present in the system: things one can do something with. The negative value merely serves to reflect the conditions under which the positive value can be brought to bear. 7 Thus the code is a double-sided form, a distinction whose inside presupposes that there is an outside. But this inside/outside relationship of the code's form should not be confused with the difference of system and environment. 8 And the internal boundary of the code, which divides the negative from the positive value,
? should not be confused with the external boundary, which differ- entiates the system from its environment. In other words, the code difference is positioned orthogonally to the difference of self-refer- ence and other-reference. It serves the system's self-determination. For this it uses a distinction - not a principle, not an objective, not a statement of essence, not a final formula, but a guiding difference which still leaves open the question as to how the system will de- scribe its own identity; and leaves it open also inasmuch as there can be several views on the matter, without this 'contexturality' of self-description hindering the system in its operating. The code, the unity of this specific difference, is sufficient to determine which op- erations belong to the system and which operations (coded differ- ently or not coded at all) are going on in the environment of the system. Thus what the code entails is a distinction which makes self-observation possible only by using the distinction of system and environment.
The code of the system of the mass media is the distinction of information and non-information. The system can work with in- formation. Information, then, is the positive value, the designatory value, with which the system describes the possibilities of its own operating. But in order to have the freedom of seeing something as information or not, there must also be a possibility of thinking that something is non-informative. Without such a reflexive value the system would be at the mercy of everything that comes its way; and that also means it would be unable to distinguish itself from the environment, to organize its own reduction of complexity, its own selection.
Of course, even the information that something is not informa- tion is also informative. As is typical for the reflexive values of the codings (so, for example, injustice must be able to be treated as injustice in a lawful way), the system goes into an infinite regress here. It makes its operations dependent upon conditions which it cannot, and then can after all, determine. But the problem of infi- nite regress is only posed when there is a search for ultimate expla- nations, and the media system has no time for this anyway. In practice, the infinite regress is halted by a further distinction: that of coding and programming. There must be a (possibly change- able) set of rules within the system which resolve the paradox of
? the informativity of non-information, those programmes with whose help one can decide whether something in the system can be treated as informative or not.
If one wanted to let the horizon of what might possibly occur flow out into complete indeterminacy, information would appear to be arbitrary rather than a surprise. No one would be able to do any- thing with it because it offers nothing that might be learnt, and be- cause it cannot be transformed into redundancies which restrict what can be expected next. This is why all information relies on categori- zations which mark out spaces of possibility; within these spaces, the selective range for what can occur as communication is prestructured. This is merely a different formulation of the theory that the informa- tion/non-information code is not sufficient, and that instead pro- grammes are additionally required which will divide whatever can be expected as information, or remains without an informational value, into fields of selection such as sports or astrophysics, politics or mod- ern art, accidents or catastrophes. The unity and invariance of the code is then matched by a plurality of such programmes or, in other words, a two-stage selection of the field of selection and of the par- ticular item of information which only becomes comprehensible through being assigned to a 'where from' of other possibilities.
The complex, referential structure of mass media coding which goes back into itself, and the necessity of breaking it down with pre-determined areas of programming lead one to ask how the con- cept of information can be adapted to this particular use of it. In- formation, of course, is processed everywhere where consciousness or communication are at work. No information, no communica- tion; for after all, what is being spoken about has to be worth ut- tering. 9 It is precisely this universal presence of information in all meaningful operations, though, which enables us to dispense with the notion that information might be transportable from system to system, like tiny particles; that information exists, as it were, inde- pendently of the user. When the operational closure of a system takes place, there is also a closure of information processing (which never means, of course, that the system enters a state of free-float- ing causal independency). Gregory Bateson's concept of informa- tion meets these demands: according to it, information is 'any difference which makes a difference in some later event'. 10
? The implications of this conceptual proposal require a somewhat closer analysis. The unity of the concept of information is broken down into two differences which are coupled to each other caus- ally. This allows account to be taken of the fact that by no means every difference makes a difference. 11 Both perception and lan- guage provide a surplus of distinctions; and even if it were to be limited to the differences actualized at any one moment, to what is being seen or said at this very moment, it is still much more than what is used for forming a difference in the premises of further operations. Perception focuses something specific in a context which is also held in view. Sentences use many words, many distinctions, in order to say something specific. But only those things which re- main in the memory in the short or long term 'make the difference'.
This selective acquisition of information can only be grasped adequately as an achievement of the system, and that means, as a process internal to the system. The unity of information is the prod- uct of a system - in the case of perception, of a psychic system, in that of communication, of a social system. So one must always clarify which system is making these differences; or, with Spencer Brown, which system is carrying out the instruction 'draw a dis- tinction' that generates every distinction. 12
If, in addition, one starts out from the theory of operationally closed systems of information processing, the generation of infor- mation and the processing of information must be going on within the same system boundaries, and both differences to which Bateson's definition is geared must be distinctions in the same system. Ac- cordingly, there are no information transfers from system to sys- tem. Having said that, systems can generate items of information which circulate between their subsystems. So one must always name the system reference upon which any use of the concept of infor- mation is based. Otherwise it remains unclear what is meant at all. 13
Perhaps the most important characteristic of the information/ non-information code is its relationship to time. Information can- not be repeated; as soon as it becomes an event, it becomes non- information. A news item run twice might still have its meaning, but it loses its information value. 14 If information is used as a code
? value, this means that the operations in the system are constantly and inevitably transforming information into non-information. 15 The crossing of the boundary from value to opposing value occurs automatically with the very autopoiesis of the system. The system is constantly feeding its own output, that is, knowledge of certain facts, back into the system on the negative side of the code, as non- information; and in doing so it forces itself constantly to provide new information. 16 In other words, the system makes itself obso- lete. Thus one might almost think that it is using the new/old code, were there not other, objective reasons for not running a particular item of information. Of course, this automatic mechanism does not exclude the possibility of repetition. Advertising especially makes use of that. But in that case, the reflexive figure of the information value of non-information must be used, as an indicator of signifi- cance and of meriting remembrance. The same advertisement is repeated several times in order thus to inform the reader, who no- tices the repetition of the value of the product.
This constant de-actualization of information, this constant loss of information takes on added significance with the evolution of the mass media. In actual fact, every communication generates so- cial redundancy. When a piece of information is uttered, one can inquire further not only of the person who uttered it, but also of everyone else who has received and understood the information. No new information is gleaned from inquiring first of the utterer and after that of the receiver. 17 This may have little social signifi- cance as long as it remains a matter of private communication, so to speak, and if all that happens is that rumours develop which distort the information in such a way that it is still of interest and continues to be so from time to time. But the mass media spread information so broadly that at the very next moment one has to assume that everyone knows it (or that not knowing it would entail loss of face and is therefore not admitted to). We have already spo- ken about things being known to be known about and now refer simply to the necessarily fictional component of this mode of infor- mation processing. In this respect, the mass media cause social re- dundancy throughout society, in other words, the immediate need for new information. Just as the economy, differentiated on the basis of payments of money, generates the never-ending need to
? replace money spent, so the mass media generate the need to re- place redundant information with new information: fresh money and new information are two central motives of modern social dy- namics.
Besides the monetary economy, then, it is likely that the mass media are also behind the much debated characteristics of modern temporal structures, such as the dominance of the past/future schema, the uniformization of world time, acceleration, the exten- sion of simultaneity to non-simultaneous events. They generate the time they presuppose, and society adapts itself accordingly. The almost neurotic compulsion in the economy, in politics, science and art to have to offer something new (even though no one knows where the novelty of the new comes from and how large a supply of it exists) offers impressive evidence of this. What is also notice- able is that modern society attaches an evaluation to its self- description as 'modern',18 which can turn out to be either positive or negative, depending on whether the (unknown) future is judged optimistically or pessimistically. 19 This compulsive need for self- assessment may be taken to have been triggered by the mass media putting out new information every day and thereby generating - and satisfying - a need for a global judgement. The increasingly academic reflection upon academic debates about modernity also makes use of the printing press;20 the speed and volume of publica- tions even at this level of abstraction could not be achieved in any other way. To be able to add something new to these debates, peo- ple are now speaking of 'postmodernity'. 21
If one sees this striving for the new as a repeated impulse, as a process, it becomes clear that this process consists in two stages, which it combines and then treats as one. 22 If in the course of time something is described as 'new', something else thereby becomes 'old' - even though it too was new at the moment when it was current. Seen as a schema of observation, new/old is simply one and only one specific schema. The form cannot function without an opposite term, without another side. Then, however, the prefer- ence for the new devalues that which it itself declares to be old. The (for us) old society of premodernity had good reason, therefore, to mistrust 'curiosity' (curiositas) and to refuse to tolerate this self- devaluation of institutions. We, on the other hand, show how re-
? sourceful we are by undertaking to promote, in highly selective manner, certain kinds of being old: they become oldtimers, clas- sics, antiquities, about which we can then generate ever-new infor- mation, prices, interpretations. We too, then, know of forms we can use to counter the new = old paradox.
Taking this theory one step further we can determine more pre- cisely the function of the informational components in the opera- tions of conscious, or communicative, systems. As a result of this coding, which is geared towards information, a specific restlessness and irritability arises in society which can then be accommodated again by the daily repeated effectivity of the mass media and by their different programme forms. 23 If we must constantly be pre- pared for surprises, it may be some consolation that tomorrow we will know more. In this respect the mass media serve to generate and process irritation. 24 The concept of irritation is also a part of the theory of operationally closed systems and refers to the form with which a system is able to generate resonance to events in the environment, even though its own operations circulate only within the system itself and are not suitable for establishing contact with the environment (which would have to mean, of course, that they are occurring partly inside and partly outside). This concept of irri- tation explains the two-part nature of the concept of information. The one component is free to register a difference which marks itself as a deviation from what is already known. The second com- ponent describes the change that then follows in the structuring of the system, in other words the integration into what can be taken to be the condition of the system for further operations. What is at issue here, as mentioned already, is a difference which makes a difference.
It might be said, then, that the mass media keep society on its toes. They generate a constantly renewed willingness to be pre- pared for surprises, disruptions even. 25 In this respect, the mass media 'fit' the accelerated auto-dynamic of other function systems such as the economy, science and politics, which constantly con- front society with new problems.
? System-specific Universalism
Just as in other function systems, the precondition for the differen- tiation of a particular function system of society is a special code. 'Differentiation' means the emergence of a particular subsystem of society by which the characteristics of system formation, especially autopoietic self-reproduction, self-organization, structural determi- nation and, along with all these, operational closure itself are real- ized. In such a case, we are not simply dealing with a phenomenon which a determined observer can distinguish. Rather, the system dis- tinguishes itself. Analysis of the system of the mass media thus oc- curs at the same level as analysis of the economic system, the legal system, the political system, etc. of society, and is concerned with paying attention to comparability, despite all differences. Evidence of a function system-specific code which is used only in the relevant system as a guiding difference is a first step in this direction. 1
Among the most important consequences of such a differentiation is the complementary relationship between universalism and specifi- cation. 1 On the basis of its own differentiation, the system can as- sume itself, its own function, its own practice as a point of reference for the specification of its own operations. It does and can only do whatever has connective capability internally, according to the struc- ture and historical situation of the system. It is precisely this, how- ever, which also creates the conditions for being able to deal with everything which can be made into a theme for its own communica- tion. Arising from this is a universal responsibility for its own func- tion. There are no facts which would be unsuitable in themselves for
? being dealt with in the mass media. (This is not to dispute the fact that there may be legal prohibitions or even political conventions which dictate that certain items of information should not (yet) be made public. ) The mass media are autonomous in the regulation of their own selectivity. This selectivity thus gains even greater signifi- cance, and becomes even more worthy of attention.
Seen from a historical perspective, we may suppose that the mass media's now visible mode of selection also makes visible - and open to criticism - a remote control on the part of political or religious or more recently military constituencies. But such criticism cannot be content with demanding space in the mass media for its own biased position. That would make the mass media into a forum for specific political or religious or ideological conflicts, which would leave little room for any independent function. A biased press can exist - as long as this is not all there is and one can obtain one's information independently. Moreover, it usually requires subsidiz- ing, so it is not supported by the market of the economic system. The more effective form of criticism will therefore have been the desire for reliable information. At least, it could not be seen as mere coincidence that a self-selectively specified universality is given a chance in the face of visible selectivity.
This expectation may have been reinforced, finally, by the estab- lishment of an internal differentiation of different areas of program- ming. Without meaning to offer a systematic deduction and justification of a closed typology, we can distinguish purely induc- tively: news and documentary reports (chapter 5), advertising (chap- ter 7), and entertainment (chapter 8). 3 Each of these strands uses the information/non-information code, even if they use very differ- ent versions of it; but they differ in terms of the criteria which un- derpin the selection of information. This is why we shall speak of areas of programming (and not of subsystems). This is not to ex- clude the possibility of overlaps, and, in particular, we will be able to recognize a recursive interlinking in each of these strands, which is imputed to be the moral convictions and typical preferences of the audience. Nonetheless these strands differ clearly enough, as we wish to show, for their differentiation to act as the most impor- tant internal structure of the system of the mass media.
? News and In-depth Reporting
The programme strand of news and in-depth reporting is most clearly recognizable as involving the production/processing of in- formation. In this strand the mass media disseminate ignorance in the form of facts which must continually be renewed so that no one notices. We are used to daily news, but we should be aware none- theless of the evolutionary improbability of such an assumption. If it is the idea of surprise, of something new, interesting and news- worthy which we associate with news, then it would seem much more sensible not to report it in the same format every day, but to wait for something to happen and then to publicize it. This hap- pened in the sixteenth century in the form of broadsides, ballads or crime stories spawned in the wake of executions etc. 1 It would take considerable entrepreneurial spirit, a market assessment that would initially be certain to involve risk, and sufficient organizational ca- pacity for gathering information if one wanted to set up an enter- prise based on the expectation that next week too there would be enough printable information available. For people at the time, Ben Jonson for example,2 serial production of news virtually proves that there must be deception at work. What may then have helped in the transition was that there was no need to distinguish between news and entertainment in the same medium and that news, whether true or not, was at least presented in an entertaining fashion. In
addition, a suitable style had to be invented which in relatively unfamiliar contexts conveyed the impression that something had already happened, but only just - in other words, it could not actu-
? ally be presented in the normal tenses of past or present. Using all the methods at the disposal of a journalistic writing style specially developed for the purpose, the impression must be given that what has just gone into the past is still present, is still interesting and informative. For this, it is sufficient to hint at a continuity that starts out from the way things were last known to stand and ex- tends beyond the present into the immediate future, so that at the same time the reason why one might be interested in the informa- tion becomes comprehensible. Events have to be dramatized as events - and they have to be suspended in time, a time which thus begins to flow past more quickly. The observation of events through- out society now occurs almost at the same time as the events them- selves.
If we consider this evolutionary transformation of improbability into probability, it is easy to understand that a profession which we now call journalism should have grown up, precisely in this sector of what will later become mass media. Only here does one find trends typical of professions, such as special training, a special, publicly accepted professional designation and self-proclaimed cri- teria for good work. 3 When information is offered in the mode of news and reporting, people assume and believe that it is relevant, that it is true. Mistakes may occur and from time to time there may even be specific false reports which, however, can subsequently be cleared up. Those affected have the right to demand a correction. The reputation of journalists, newspapers, editors etc. depends upon them doing good or at least adequate background research. False reports are therefore more likely to be launched from outside. A common way of protecting oneself is to give one's sources. In other cases, when mistakes have been made, explanations pointing to external causes are proffered. Of course, as everywhere, error rates have to be reckoned with. But what is important is that they should not be projected to become a more or less typical norm. They re- main isolated cases; were it otherwise, the peculiarity of this area of programming of news and in-depth reporting would collapse. The profession serves society (itself included) with truths. For un- truths, particular interests are needed which cannot be generalized.
But the mass media are only interested in things that are true under severely limiting conditions that clearly differ from those of
? scientific research. It is not the truth that is the problem, there- fore, but rather the unavoidable yet intended and regulated selec- tivity. Just as maps cannot correspond exactly to the territory they depict in terms of size and details, and just as Tristram Shandy was not in a position to tell of the life he lived, so also it is not possible to have a point-for-point correspondence between infor- mation and facts, between operational and represented reality. But neither is the relationship of the system to its environment simply a relationship of one-sided reduction of complexity. Rather, by means of differentiation, a break with external determination, and operational closure, surplus communication possibilities - that is, high degrees of freedom - are created internally, which mean that the system has to impose limits on itself - and is able to do so! The distinction of external and internal complexity corresponds to the distinction of other-reference and self-reference. The point of this doubling is to generate autonomy over against an environ- ment which is as it is, and to set the freedom to select over against this environment that can be assumed to be determined. In other words, the point is to introduce into a determined, even if un- known, world4 an area of self-determination which can then be dealt with in the system itself as being determined by its own struc-
tures.
From empirical research we know the significant criteria for the selection of information for dissemination as news or as a report. 5 Information itself can only appear as (however small) a surprise. Furthermore, it must be understandable as a component of com- munication. The principle of selection now seems to be that these requirements are intensified for the purposes of the mass media and that more attention must be given to making the information readily understandable for the broadest possible circle of receivers. Incidentally, 'selection' here is not to be taken to mean freedom of choice. The concept refers to the function system of the mass media and not to its individual organizations (editorial boards), whose freedom to make decisions in choosing the news items they run is much less than critics often suppose.
Keeping to news first (as opposed to reports), the following se- lectors6 can typically be found:
? (1) Surprise is intensified by marked discontinuity. The item of in- formation has to be new. It must break with existing expectations or determine a space of limited possibilities which is kept open (for example, sporting events). Repetitions of news items are not wel- come. 7 When we think of novelty, we think first of one-off events. But in order to recognize novelty we need familiar contexts. These may be types (earthquakes, accidents, summit meetings, company collapses) or even temporary stories, for example, affairs or reforms about which there is something new to report every day, until they are resolved by a decision. There is also serial production of novel- ties, for example, on the stock exchange or in sports, where some- thing new comes up every day. Surprises and standardizations increase in intensity in relation to each other to generate informa- tion values which otherwise would not occur, or at least not in a form capable of dissemination.
(2) Conflicts are preferred. As topics, conflicts have the benefit of alluding to a self-induced uncertainty. They put off the liberating information about winners and losers by way of reference to a fu- ture. This generates tension and, on the side of understanding the communication, guesswork.
(3) Quantities are a particularly effective attention-grabber. Quan- tities are always informative, because any particular number is none other than the one mentioned - neither larger nor smaller. And this holds true regardless of whether one understands the material con- text (that is, whether or not one knows what a gross national prod- uct is or a runner-up). The information value can be increased in the medium of quantity if one adds comparative figures, whether they be temporal (the previous year's rate of inflation), or factual, for example, territorial.
So quantification can generate sudden moments of insight without any substance and simultaneously more information for those who already have some knowledge. An addi- tional issue is the greater informational significance of large num- bers, especially where locally and temporally compact events are concerned (many deaths in one accident, huge losses in one case of fraud).
Quantities, incidentally, are not as innocent as they might ap- pear. For here, too, the two-stage effect mentioned above (p. 21)
? comes into play when viewed over the course of time. If something increases, it simultaneously decreases. What it was before becomes simultaneously less than it is today. Returning to the old quantity with which one was quite happy at one time then seems like a step back. A society committed to growth is constantly threatening it- self with its own past. In the case of stages operating the other way around or negative valuations, the opposite can then happen, of course: falling export figures or rising unemployment are examples of this.
(4) Local relevance is another thing which lends weight to a piece of information, presumably because people are so confident of knowing what is going on in their own locality that every addi- tional piece of information is especially valued. 8 The Daily Progress mainly covers events in Charlottesville, Virginia. The fact that a dog bit a postman can only be reported as a piece of very local news. For it to reach a wider audience, a whole pack of dogs would have had to tear the postman to pieces, and even that would not be reported in Berlin if it happened in Bombay. So distance must be compensated for by the gravity of the information or by strange- ness, by an esoteric element, which simultaneously conveys the in- formation that such a thing would hardly be likely to happen here.
(5) Norm violations also deserve particular attention. This goes for violations of the law, but especially for violations of the moral code, and more recently also for violations of 'political correct- ness'. 9 In media representations of them, norm violations often take on the character of scandals. This intensifies the resonance, livens up the scene and rules out the expression of understanding and torgiveness that may occur upon the violation of a norm. Where scandals are concerned, a further scandal can be caused by the way a scandal is commented on.
By reporting such norm violations and scandals, the mass media are able to generate a greater feeling of common concern and out- rage than in other ways. This could not be read off the norm text itself - the norm is actually only generated through the violation, whereas before it simply 'existed' in the mass of existing norms. Of course, it has to be assumed that no one knows the full extent of this kind of deviance and also that no one knows how others them-
? selves would behave in similar cases. But when violations (that is, suitably selected violations) are reported as isolated cases, it strength- ens on the one hand the sense of outrage and thus indirectly the norm itself, and on the other it also strengthens what has been called 'pluralistic ignorance', in other words, the lack of aware- ness of the normality of deviance. 10 And this does not occur in the risky form of a sermon or of attempts at indoctrination, which are more likely nowadays to trigger tendencies towards counter- socialization, but rather in the harmless form of mere reporting which allows everybody the opportunity to reach the conclusion: not so!
Here is a topical example of this: many criminological studies have shown that delinquency even to the extent of serious criminality amongst juveniles is not the exception but rather the rule. 11 This starting point has led to demands for decriminalization and for preventive educational measures to be introduced. However, since this degree of delinquency does not continue in any case when young people get older, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of any pre- ventive measures, and opinion remains divided on the issue. Yet in the context of spectacular criminality directed against asylum seek- ers and other foreigners (by way of limiting the example further), this existing knowledge remains virtually ignored. In the face of this kind of 'change of subject' in juvenile criminality and of its political significance, one cannot hark back to profiles of normal- ity. The problem dominates reporting without being offset against normal crimes of violence, sex crimes and property crime. And cor- respondingly, pressure for political action is generated which no longer allows for reports to be embedded back into the normal.
Apart from reports about norm violations, there is also a prefer- ence for the extraordinary (the 'alligator in local gravel pit' sort), which take normally expected circumstances as their point of ref- erence and are perhaps better assigned to the entertainment sector. The effect of continually repeated items of information about norm violations might be the overestimation of the extent to which soci- ety is morally corrupt, especially if it is the behaviour of prominent people in society who 'set the tone' that is reported most. Such an effect can hardly be assumed to occur in the case of any other kind of abnormality. (No one is going to check their own swimming
? pool to see if an alligator might be hiding there too. ) But this merely confirms the fact that norms are more sensitive to deviations than facts, which is where expectations concerning the probable/improb- able distinction are regulated.
(6) Norm violations are especially selected for reporting when they can be accompanied by moral judgements, in other words, when they are able to offer an opportunity to demonstrate respect or disdain for people. In this regard the mass media have an impor- tant function in the maintenance and reproduction of morality. However, this should not be taken to mean that they are in a posi- tion to fix ethical principles or even just to raise society's moral standards towards good behaviour. No person or institution in modern society is able to do that - neither the Pope nor a council, neither the German parliament nor Der Spiegel. It is only wrong- doers caught in the act who demonstrate to us that such criteria are needed. It is only the code of morality which is reproduced, in other words the difference of good and bad, or evil, behaviour. The legal system is ultimately responsible for setting criteria. The mass me- dia merely provide a constant irritation for society, a reproduction of moral sensibility at the individual as well as the communicative level. However, this leads to a kind of 'disembedding' of morality, to moralizing talk which is not covered by any verifiable obliga- tions. 12 The way morality is imagined and its ongoing renovation is linked to sufficiently spectacular cases - when scoundrels, victims, and heroes who have gone beyond the call of duty are presented to us. The receiver will typically align herself with none of these groups. She remains - an observer.
(7) In order to make norm violations recognizable, but also to make it easier for the reader/listener to form an opinion, the media fa- vour attributing things to action, that is, to actors. Complex back- ground circumstances which might have motivated, if not coerced, an actor to do what he or she did cannot be fully illuminated. If they are thematized, then it is in order to shift credit or blame. If we hear that a leading politician has made a decision, we are still far from knowing who has made that decision - with the exception of Lady Thatcher, perhaps.
It should be emphasized, by way of countering an error wide-
? spread in empirical sociology, that neither actions nor actors are given as empirical facts. 13 The boundaries (and therefore the unity) of an action or of an actor can neither be seen nor heard. In each case, what we are dealing with are institutionally and culturally congruent constructs. 14 Drawing loosely on Max Weber, we could also say that actions only come to be constituted as such through an understanding which standardizes. This also makes the func- tion of the mass media comprehensible in their contribution to the cultural institutionalization of action. Patterns of action are copied in a reciprocal fashion between the media and what presents itself as reality in everyday experience; unusual action wears off and is then built up again.
By the same token, interest in particular people is reproduced, and this in forms which are not dependent upon having access to the biochemical, neurophysiological or psychical processes of the individuals concerned. 15 Especially in those times which experience their future as being dependent upon actions and decisions, orien- tation towards particular people increases noticeably. People serve society as tangible symbols of an unknown future. On the one hand, they are well known - or could be - including, in the case of televi- sion, their faces, bodies and habits of movement; and on the other hand, we know that we still do not know how they will act. The hope of possibly being able to influence their actions is based ex- actly on this. If there is then the added element, especially in poli- tics, of not trusting people's self-portrayal and statements of intention, their function still remains of bringing the unfamiliarity of the future into view. And this they do in an experiential world which, by and large, is as it is and remains so.
With reference to actions and people the system of the mass me- dia creates significant ambiguities for itself, closely following every- day communication as it does so. It is true that ambiguities are found in every piece of communication, but that does not stop us from examining how and where they are localized in order to fulfil particular functions. 16 The thematization of actions and particular people takes on the special function of disguising systems' bounda- ries and thereby also differences in different systems' operational mode. The concepts of action and person can be limited neither to social processes nor to processes of consciousness, to biochemical
? nor to neurophysiological processes. Rather they presuppose that all this makes a contribution to the action and to being a person, without these concepts giving any clues as to how the combination comes about. Apparently this lack of clarity makes for speedy com- munication. But at the same time it also controls what can follow on as a further piece of communication - and what cannot.
(8) The requirement of topicality means that news items concen- trate on individual cases - incidents, accidents, malfunctions, new ideas. Events that make the news have already happened by the time they are made known. The requirement of recursivity leads to these events being referred to in subsequent news items - whether they are assigned a meaning that is typical, or whether they are woven into a narrative context which can continue to be narrated. Occasionally, incidents that are reported offer an opportunity to report similar events and then to report a 'series' of events. Kepplinger and Hartung call such events 'key events'. 17 Clearly, it is only under certain conditions that events lend themselves to re- cursions being sought and series being constructed. This kind of revaluation might come about due to additional information being reported - the extent of damage caused, a catastrophe narrowly avoided, the concern of those unaffected (potentially, then, of every- one) and the suspicion of a cover-up by those responsible. These conditions will not be constant, but will vary with the assumed interest of the public. As always, the media give a special nuance to what they report and to how they report it and thus decide on what has to be forgotten because it only has significance in relation to a specific situation, and what has to remain in the memory. In order to complete the recursions, schemata are used or even generated anew, whose effectiveness in the media is not, or only to a very minor extent, dependent upon them being confirmed by the actual circumstances of individual cases.
(9) What must be mentioned as a special case is that even the ex- pression of opinions can be disseminated as news. 18 A considerable part of the material for press, radio and television comes about because the media are reflected in themselves and they treat this in turn as an event. People might be asked for their opinions, or they might impose them. But these are always events which would not
? take place at all if there were no mass media. The world is being filled, so to speak, with additional noise, with initiatives, commen- taries, criticism. Prior to decisions being made, prominent mem- bers of society are asked what they are demanding or expecting; after the decisions have been made, they are asked what they think of them. This is one way of accentuating what is happening any- way. But commentary too can become an opportunity for criticism and criticism can offer an opportunity for commentary. In this way the mass media can increase their own sensitivity and adapt to changes in public opinion which they themselves produced. A good example of this is the change in attitudes in the USA about the meaning of the Vietnam War, which is still recalled today (perhaps because it was a change in attitude) whenever the USA engages in military action.
Correspondingly, the selection criteria too have to be doubled here. The issue itself must be interesting enough. And the expres- sion of opinion must come from a source which has a remarkable reputation, by virtue of either standing or personality. Letters to the editor are also pre-selected - partly with a view to the name and status of senders or their organizations, but also so that the selection does not become too obvious, and that the 'letters to the editor' section can be regarded as an expression of opinions from amongst ordinary people. This sort of opinion news thus serves a dual function: On the one hand, it emphasizes whatever the object of the opinion is - it remains a topic on the agenda because of the opinion expressed. And it bolsters the reputation of the source by repeatedly using the source's opinions. Real events and opinion events are constantly being mixed together in this way, forming for the audience a viscous mass in which topics can still be distinguished but the origin of the information no longer can. 19
(10) All these selectors are reinforced and complemented by oth- ers by virtue of the fact that it is organizations which are dealing with the selection and which develop their own routines for the purpose. 20 The work consists in fitting information which has al- ready largely been pre-selected in the system of the mass media into rubrics and templates. Time and available space (empty minutes of airtime, available column space) then play a decisive role in the final selection. The criteria which apply here, stored according to
? considerations of repeated applicability, are thus themselves nei- ther new nor especially exciting and neither morally articulated nor conflict-ridden. All these considerations disappear at the level of organizational programming because they would encumber the work too much. The organization programmes themselves are just about the opposite of what they recommend as 'newsworthy'. The organization fulfils its social function precisely by working differ- ently.
If one takes the selectors as forms which carry another side with them and keep a memory of it, remarkable breaks are manifested. Discontinuities tell us nothing about the future; actions, decisions, people, local interests do not exclude the possibility of disturbances coming from outside. Quantities say virtually nothing about op- portunities for development - even if politics, as a financial spon- sor, labours under the contrary illusion. News generates and reproduces future uncertainties - contrary to all evidence of conti- nuity in the world we know from daily perception.
This self-reinforcing network of selectors is concerned in par- ticular with the production of daily news. A distinction should be made between news on the one hand and reports that are not de- pendent upon daily events on the other. Such reports provide infor- mation about the contexts of any news items that come up. Their news value is not based in time, which passes at the same rate for everyone, but rather arises from the presumed state of knowledge of the audience or of those parts of the audience being addressed - reports about the characteristics of certain diseases, about far-off countries, about developments in science, about ecological or cli- matic conditions etc. This too is information with a claim to truth, facts portrayed as relevant. Huge quantities of 'specialist books' fulfil this particular purpose of complementing the temporary, tran- sitory nature of news. This is not about entertainment, and we shall return to this difference later.
For at least the last ten years an increasing fluidity in the differ- ence of news and in-depth reporting has been evident. It consists in news being stored electronically and kept available for repeated retrieval. This is now happening to an enormous extent, so that what was once news can be transformed into a report as required.
? The system then produces more information from information by generating contexts for reports in which news long put aside and forgotten reacquires informational value. As a sociologist one would like to know the purpose of this second utilization and on what occasions it is put into operation. The most obvious thought that comes to mind here is that it is used for purposes of discrediting people - destroying people by making their story public again. But it might also be, for example, to demonstrate the slowness of po- litical apparatuses which have never reacted to things already known about for a long time. If this supposition is confirmed, it would provide an opportunity to inquire into the motives for reactualizing truths - truths which, because they are now so old, can hardly be checked out.
Although truth, or rather the assumption of truth, is indispens- able for news and in-depth reporting, the mass media do not fol- low the code true/untrue, but rather the code information/non- information, even in their cognitive area of programming. This is apparent in that untruth is not used as a reflexive value. It is not important for news and in-depth reporting (or at any rate for back- ground research that is not also reported) that untruth can be ruled out. Unlike in science, information is not reflected in such a way that, before truth is asserted, it must be established truthfully that untruth can be ruled out. The problem with news items is not in this, but rather in their selection, and that has far-reaching conse- quences for what one could describe as the 'climate' surrounding the mass media.
Even if one distinguishes different selectors in news and report- ing, there is a danger of generating still much too simple an image of the way the mass media construct reality. It is true that the prob- lem is in the selection, but the selection itself is a complex event - regardless of which criteria it follows. Every selection decontextualizes and condenses particular identities which in them- selves have nothing 'identical' (= substantial) about them, but merely have to be identified in the context of being reviewed for purposes of reference, of recursive use, and only for that purpose. In other words, identity is only conferred if the intention is to return to something. But at the same time this means there is confirmation and generalization. That which is identified is transferred into a
? schema or associated with a familiar schema. It is marked and thereby confirmed, such that it is able to retain the same meaning for other uses in other situations. Every selection, therefore, is based on a context of condensing, confirmation, generalization and schematization not found in the same way in the outside world being communicated about, and this applies to everyday commu- nication just as it does to the particular kind of communication of the mass media. This is what lies behind the assertion that it is only communication (or in other words, the system of the mass media) that gives facts or events a meaning. To formulate this using a different concept, condensates of meaning, topics, and objects emerge as 'Eigenvalues' of the system of mass media com- munication. 21 They are generated in the recursive context of the system's operations and do not depend upon the environment's confirmation of them.
It is with just this characteristic of identity acquisition that a form develops whose inside is characterized by reusability and whose outside disappears from view. But selection always also generates that other side of the products presented, that is, the non-selection or the 'unmarked space' of the rest of the world. The marking em- phasizes whatever is problematic for some reason and is there- fore interesting. But in so doing it simultaneously makes clear that there is something else besides. Understanding the communication requires, here as elsewhere too, the distinction of information and utterance. The fact that the information is true (demonstrable, can- not be disproved, etc. ) is therefore perfectly compatible with the observation of the utterance as contingent, as something that might not be carried out, as the product of a decision, conditional upon motives.
The social memory is filled with identities which are constantly being renewed in this way. However, memory is not to be under- stood as a storage place for past circumstances or events. Neither the media nor other cognitive systems can burden themselves with these things. Rather, we are talking about an ongoing discrimina- tion between forgetting and remembering. Communicative capaci- ties which become available are impregnated ever anew by the reuse of the necessary units of meaning. 22 Memory constructs repetitions, that is, redundancy, with continued openness towards what is cur-
? rent, with continually renewed irritability. As neurophysiological studies of the brain show, this is fully compatible with the opera- tional unity of the system, in fact it is conditioned by it. For these self-tests for recognizability could not even take place if the envir- onment itself were to become active in the system without being filtered. Memory compensates, in fact overcompensates, for the lack of operational contact with the environment by means of the sys- tem's own activities, simultaneously enabling a temporary focus on temporary situations. The marking of what is familiar prevents the forgetting which might indeed be expected in the leap from one operation to the next (and which functions almost completely), and simultaneously binds to learning processes the reimpregnating ac- tivated by events. Whatever is remembered does not need to be labelled with a 'past' temporal index, and we shall see presently how important this is for advertising by repetition. It can also be experienced as 'new', inasmuch as it is only brought into play for communication's ongoing tests of consistency (as well as those of neuronal and psychic memory). For without memory, nothing could appear to be 'new' (= deviant) and without experiences of devia- tion, no memory could develop.
To the extent that improbable information is marked out and selected for reporting, the question arises as to the reasons for the selection. The system's coding and programming, specialized to- wards selection of information, causes suspicion to arise almost of its own accord that there are background motives at work. This problem has been an immediate one ever since the introduction of the printing press. Neither the world itself nor the wisdom of the wise, neither the nature of signs nor the effort of writing can ex- plain the emergence of signs. Early modernity experimented with two different responses in the face of all knowledge becoming con- tingent. One response, related to understanding, was that only what is new, surprising or artificial can be enjoyed, since everything else is in any case the way it is. This is the response of art theory. 23 The other response refers to the aspect of communication to do with utterance and expects to find an interest here. This is the response from political theory (politics to be understood here as public be- haviour per se, according to the meaning it had at that time). This
response leads to the distinction of purpose and motive, of mani-
? fest and latent reasons for communication. Baltasar Gracian com- bines both responses in a general theory of social communication. Communication is the generation of pleasing appearances by which individuals conceal themselves from others and therefore ultimately also from themselves. 24
These two mutually exonerating responses can still be found to- dav, at least in the system of the mass media. On the one hand, improbability has become an institution. It is expected. It operates as an opportunity for attentiveness. On the other hand, suspicions arise of concealed goings-on, of political machinations in the broad- est sense. The mass media are 'manipulating' public opinion. They are pursuing an interest that is not being communicated. They are producing 'bias'. It may be that everything they write or broadcast is relevant, but that does not answer the question: what for? Their concern may be to achieve commercial success, or to promote ideo- logical options, to support political tendencies, to maintain the so- cial status quo (this in particular by providing a drug-like distraction towards ever new items of news) or simply to be a commercial success. The mass media seem simultaneously to nurture and to undermine their own credibility. They 'deconstruct' themselves, since they reproduce the constant contradiction of their constative and their performative textual components with their own opera- tions.
All this is also true of television. After all, television has to accept a rather curious limitation when broadcasting news, which has the effect of being a credibility bonus. When filming something hap- pening, it is tied to the real time of that event's unfolding. It cannot photograph what is happening (for example, a football match, a tornado, a demonstration) either before it has happened or after it has happened, only at the same time.