Observing News and Media in a Complex Society

Toru Takahashi, Ph.D. (2001), Tohoku University, is Professor at Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law, Chuo University in Tokyo. He has published many articles on media including "Governing and Societal Media for Building Resilience"> (Current Sociology, 2019).

• AcknowledgementsAbstractKeywordsIntroductionPart 1 Cybernetics and Communication1.1 Communication and Recursivity1.2 Communication as a Social System1.3 Problem-Solving as a Social Catalyst1.4 Governing in a Complex SocietyPart 2 Media, Journalism, and Society2.1 Journalism and News Values2.2 Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of the Mass Media2.3 Systems Theory of Journalism and the Public Sphere2.4 The Public Sphere and Journalistic AutonomyPart 3 Media and Politics3.1 Politics and the Mass Media3.2 Politics and Morality3.3 Conflict and Society I: Terrorism3.4 Conflict and Society II: Armed ConflictPart 4 News as Societal Observation4.1 Structural Change of the Media Constellation and Journalism4.2 “Source Cycle” between the News Media and the Blogosphere4.3 Communication and Surplus Meanings4.4 News as Self-Descriptions of SocietyPart 5 Observing News and Media in a Complex Society5.1 Journalism as Investigative Curator5.2 Reporting for Governing?5.3 Media as Societal Facilitators for Problem-SolvingSummary and ConclusionsReferences

"With news media being so closely associated with the political system, Takahashi brings the relationship between these two into sharper relief […]. [Takahashi] is able to successfully place Luhmann’s work within the broader context of media studies by directly comparing the latter’s criteria for news selection with other authoritative schematisations."—Nico Buitendag, North-West University, In: Soziale Systeme, Volume 29, Issue 1-2 (2024), pp. 312–324.