All communication is necessarily a partial selection from inner reality

Evidence

The first and most important assumption is that media-guided communication processes bind partners who both complete their own selections and know about this from each other. Let us use the terms ‘alter’ and ‘ego’. All communication media assume social situations with the possibility of choice on both sides, in other words, situations of double contingent selectivity. That is precisely what gives these media their function of transmitting selections from alter to ego while preserving their selectivity. To this extent, the initial problem in all symbolically generalized communication media is the same; what applies to love or truth applies to power. In each case the influential communication relates to a partner who is to be directed in the making of their selections. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 592 (#expands, via linked claim)

The semiological influence leads to the emphasis on the key role of the (largely unconscious) linguistic, visual, and cultural codes that underlie the communications process. In a fundamentally transformative reversal, this emphasis shifts the question of misunderstanding from being a marginal kink in a communications process otherwise presumed to be smooth to a central place in the analysis—where differential understandings of any message are seen as the norm. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 759 (#expands, via linked claim)

Communication media are raised above the taken-for-granted reality of normal life only where influence is contingent and thereby, for once, rather improbable. Only when, and in so far as, goods are scarce does the active claim to some of them on the part of one person become a problem for others, and this situation is then regulated by a communication medium, which transfers the action selected by the one person into the experience of the others and so makes it acceptable. In the context of scarcity, influence becomes precarious in a special way, so that, in view of this unusual situation, a specifically generalized communication medium can take shape, which makes possible the transmission of reduced complexity in this case, but not in others. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 605 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Communication constitutes reality rather than merely representing it — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 382; Communication media form only where selection has become contingent and improbable — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 605; Communication does not report reality but inverts the reported relation to it — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 187 (+3 more)

Related

• All communication media presuppose double contingent selectivity between partners (similarity 0.88)
• Misunderstanding is the norm rather than an anomaly in communication (similarity 0.82)
• Communication succeeds only through shared contextual beliefs that cannot be fully formalized (similarity 0.82)
• Communication does not report reality but inverts the reported relation to it (similarity 0.81)
• Communication misunderstanding is the norm, not a marginal defect. (similarity 0.80)
• Communication media are symbol codes that motivate acceptance of selections (similarity 0.80)
• Talk itself generates communities and power independent of fixed interests (similarity 0.80)
• Power functions as a communication medium through double selectivity between alter and ego. (similarity 0.79)
• Communication media form only where selection has become contingent and improbable (similarity 0.79)
• Power is code-guided communication, not a property possessed by anyone (similarity 0.79)
• People answer what they think you mean, not what you say (similarity 0.79)
• Messages are polysemic, so decoding never guarantees preferred intended meaning. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• All communication media presuppose double contingent selectivity between partners #expands (0.85) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 592
• Communication media form only where selection has become contingent and improbable #expands (0.80) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 605
• Misunderstanding is the norm rather than an anomaly in communication #expands (0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 759
• Communication constitutes reality rather than merely representing it #complicates (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 382
• Communication does not report reality but inverts the reported relation to it #expands (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 187
• Communication is a symbolic process producing and maintaining reality. #qualifies (0.70) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 180