Power functions as a communication medium through double selectivity between alter and ego.

Evidence

According to this, transmission of selection outputs means precisely the reproduction of those outputs in simplified form abstracted from the requirements of their initial configuration. It is precisely in view of this simplification and abstraction that symbols are needed to replace the concrete beginning, the initial link in the selection chain. For this purpose communication media develop symbolically generalized codes which then act as shared orientations for their operations. Yet each subsequent phase of the process continues itself to be self-selection. Communication media consequently provide the ability to orient around widely different situations while, at the same time, enabling particular (non-identical) selections to be made. It is only under this basic condition that power, too, functions as a communication medium. It organizes social situations through double selectivity. Therefore, the selectivity of alter must be distinguished from that of ego, for very different problems are raised in relation to their respective positions, particularly in the case of power. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 593

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines power as a communication medium organized through double selectivity with symbolically generalized codes.
• XREF: Relates to Giddens’s faceless commitments: the symbolic generalized codes replace facework with abstract trust in systems. — connects to: Talk itself generates communities and power independent of fixed interests; Power can be conceptually unified across agents, systems, and effects — Philip Pettit, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and…, 395