Communication is the basic element and operation of social systems. It consists of the unity of the difference among three Selections: utterance (*Mitteilung*), information, and understanding (*Verstehen*) of the difference between utterance and information.
Communication is achieved if information (e.g., today it is raining) and the participant’s responsibility for uttering it (saying that today it is raining) are understood as different selections. Without such an understanding, there is no communication. This means that communication cannot be reduced to perception; for instance, to one participant’s sight of another participant or hearing her voice, since perception does not include understanding the responsibility for producing an utterance; we can perceive that our stomach grumbles, but we cannot attribute any responsibility for selecting an utterance to our stomach.
Information, utterance and understanding are selections. Information is a selection because the choice of a topic excludes other topics. In other words, information (today it is raining) draws a Distinction between what is said and what is not said (e.g., today is beautiful day). In communication, information is uttered by a participant and understood by at least another participant. Therefore, in communication information is produced, rather than transmitted: information is not lost by someone and gained by someone else, but is uttered by someone and understood by someone else.
Through understanding, communication can stress who has uttered what. Therefore, understanding makes it possible for further communication to refer to either previous utterances (someone’s motives or intentions) or uttered information (what), thus generating communication →Processes. Understanding, rather than for thinking, is important for the reproduction of communication, although thinking is related to communication [→Interpenetration and Structural Coupling].
Utterance, information and understanding can be separated for analytical purposes, but they are a unity in communication, which cannot be decomposed. This unity does not last, since understanding, utterance and information are realized simultaneously. Communication is an →Event, which immediately disappears. Since each communication disappears immediately, each communication is new. Going beyond specific communicative events, communication processes require that each communication is followed by another communication connecting to it through understanding. Thus, each communication is produced by a recursive network of communications which defines the unity of a →Social System, and communication may be seen as the specific operation that produces a social system. In other words, social systems use communication as a specific operation for autopoietic reproduction [→Autopoiesis], and the continuation of communication achieves the autopoiesis of a social system. Social systems have communication as their basic operation and include only communication. An important consequence is that individuals, as →Psychic Systems, are not included in social systems; rather, they are systems in the environment of social systems.
Since all communications are included in social systems, there is no communication between a social system and its environment. Social systems are closed systems that produce information through communication; they do not receive information from their environments. However, social systems are also open to their environments, as they can observe [→Operation/Observation] it in the form of information produced in communication: what is not communication (e.g., conscience, biological life, physical machines, chemical elements) can be observed in communication as information. Communication allows the differentiation of the attribution of selections to the system (as utterance) and to its environment (as information). This also means that communication allows the distinction and recombination of the reference to the system and reference to the environment [→Self-Reference].
The process of communication can be observed as decomposed in actions, since reproduction of communication requires attribution of action. Action is not an operation of social systems, but a way of making this operation visible in the system.
Firstly, attribution of action makes it possible to observe if understanding, and therefore communication, has been achieved.
Secondly, attribution of action refers to previous utterance or information and makes it possible to attribute responsibilities, intentions and motives for it.
Thus, by attributing action, participants can know whom they are Addressing [⇒ Address and Localization].
Attribution of action enables the observation that someone has said something, and thus the observation of the difference between utterance and information. This observation allows the self-referential connection between communications, making it possible to establish the communication process as a series of observable Events [⇒ Event (Ereignis)].
Thus, through attribution of action, the communication process can observe itself: the following communication can refer to what has been said, by answering, questioning, refusing, and so on. Attribution of action is a simplification of communication, as it does not include observation of connections between communications and autopoiesis. It is a necessary simplification that allows a social system constitute its operations with reference to its operations. The attribution of action is necessary for the autopoiesis of social systems, as it provides the possibility for self-reference. However, the attribution of action also presupposes the autopoiesis of communication, as action can be attributed only if it is understood.
There are no social systems without communication. Nevertheless, communication is an improbable event. First, at the most basic level, understanding, and thus achievement of communication, is improbable. Second, in more complex situations, reaching interlocutors through utterance is improbable. Third, in the most complex situations, acceptance of communication is improbable. An important sociological problem is understanding how improbable communication can become probable. Some media [→Medium/Form] are used in society to make communication probable: →Language makes understanding probable, media of communication diffusion make reaching interlocutors probable [→Dissemination Media; Mass Media], and →Symbolically Generalized Media of communication make acceptance probable. [C.B.] – (Unlocking Luhmann, p 45–48)
Social Systems (1995: Ch. 4); Theory of Society (2012: 35-49); The Autopoiesis of Social Systems (1986); What is Communication? (1992).