Treating power as a communication medium enables comparing it with truth and money.

Evidence

Using the theory of communication media as a basis for a theory of power has the advantage of making it possible to draw a comparison between power and other communication media, applying identically composed questions, comparing it, for example, with truth, or with money. Thus, these questions not only serve to clarify the phenomenon of power, but at the same time help produce a more broadly orientated comparative interest and facilitate the exchange of theoretical insights between different media areas. In addition to such new insights, the theory of power gains a general perspective over forms of influence which will be discussed separately from a more designated concept of power. This makes it possible to avoid what has so often been remarked on, i.e. overloading the concept of power with attributes of a very broadly and loosely defined process of influence. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 584

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the framing move: power is a communication medium on par with truth and money, not a vague notion of influence.
• XREF: Directly parallels Giddens’s treatment of expert systems and faceless commitments as media-like abstractions.