Interaction system
The interaction system is a sociological technical term and is used as such mainly in the sociological system theory according to Niklas Luhmann . Within systems theory (also: theory of social systems ) it is often used synonymously with the term “interaction”. It is also used in this sense by Dirk Baecker , Elena Esposito , Rudolf Stichweh , Peter Fuchs and others. a. Systems theorists.
An interaction system is a temporary system that comes about when “people” (in Luhmann's “age” and “ego”) come together and communicate in a face-to-face situation. Luhmann distinguishes the interaction system from social functional systems, which always use their own symbolically generalized communication media and are differentiated from one another through functional differentiation . Another differentiation between social functional systems and interaction systems lies in the different stability: An interaction system comes into being and then dissolves again.
Interaction systems can develop different levels of complexity . Examples of interaction systems are: people waiting at a bus stop, a party, a mass brawl, sexual intercourse , the situation of prisoners in a cell, but also a prison riot .
The term can also be used in sociology outside of systems theory.
Conceptual function
Luhmann describes the basic constellation of interaction as " double contingency "; This means that neither age experiences the consciousness of ego nor knows its contents, nor vice versa ego that or that of alter. The question to which the term offers an answer is how communication (nevertheless) comes about under the condition of double contingency. System should mean that the past of communication makes a certain future probable (and excludes other possibilities or makes them extremely improbable) and thus not every communication within the interaction begins with zero, as it were. The concept of the system basically answers the question of how an improbable improbability in itself becomes a probable improbability in a certain context.
History and relevance of the term
Concept history
The term interaction was first used prominently through Symbolic Interactionism and was then expanded upon by Erving Goffman . Despite all the differences in theory (role theory vs. system theory), Luhmann and Goffman are similar in use: he means communication in the presence (face-to-face) situation.
It is largely thanks to Goffman for putting face-to-face communication at the center of sociological research. "My basic interest", writes Goffman, "is the study of personal interaction as a naturally delimited, analytically uniform sub-area of sociology".
In order to understand the strategy of the concept of systems theory , one must first be clear about what the subject of sociology is. Society is generally thought to be “a collection of people”. Sociogy has to reject this idea in order to define its subject and to differentiate itself from anthropology , ethnology and psychology . Max Weber strengthens the concept of social trade and defines it as an act that is related to another person. Georg Simmel avoids the term society entirely and speaks only of " Vergesellschaftung ", Émile Durkheim of "social facts", Niklas Luhmann of social systems (whereby he only understands people as their environment).
When asked what the object of sociology is - or how "society" (as the object of sociological theory) can be described - one can distinguish between two approaches. One - microsociological - position (Max Weber, Alfred Schütz , Erving Goffman) is based on interaction, the other - macro-sociological - (Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons ) on the priority of a supra-personal structure. The first position mainly relates to action theory and psychological approaches. The second position relates to the linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the structuralism and theories of the ethnologist Bronisław Malinowski , the philosophy of Herbert Spencer and functionalism .
The subject of the macro-sociological approach is - one could put it simply - the social structure. The main subject of the microsociological approach is interaction.
relevance
What is special about the term “interaction system” is that it brings both approaches together. On the one hand, interaction and not society is considered; on the other hand, the term “system” indicates that the starting point is not the individual but the structure.
Critique of the term
- Luhmann is controversial as an interaction theorist. However, there have been attempts to identify him as such and, above all, to relate him to Goffman's role theory.
- The term interaction or interaction system is different from that of society. One could also differentiate between interaction (communication in presence) and non-interaction communication (book). This sometimes leaves it unclear whether the term refers to a theoretical approach (i.e. an approach) or a subject area.
- With regard to the Internet, the term is becoming increasingly problematic and requires a new differentiation. The hard distinction between interaction-free communication by means of books (in writing, without the possibility of reacting, in absence, recipient determines the time of reception, etc.) and interaction (oral, possibility of reaction, in presence, sender determines the time of reception), are made by the new media increasingly blurred. So there is a differentiation of the interaction. It is precisely in this differentiation that the future of the term can be located and its future relevance can be anticipated.
Individual evidence
- ^ Erving Goffman: Strategic Interaction . Munich, 1981, p. 9. Original: Strategic Interaction , p. 69
- ^ André Kieserling : Communication among those present, studies on interaction systems . Frankfurt a. M. 1999.