Swell of discouragement
When thresholds of discouragement referred Niklas Luhmann three improbabilities that in communication occur and complicate.
The theory of the improbability of communication
In 1981 Luhmann wrote The Improbability of Communication and explains that communication must be viewed from a counter-phenomenal approach in order to obtain new results about it. He examines communication as a problem and not as a phenomenon. His thesis is that communication is fundamentally improbable, since there are three obstacles (improbabilities) that reinforce each other.
- It is unlikely that the recipient will understand what the sender means. Because the recipient's awareness and memory provide a contextual framework for understanding messages.
- Communication is unlikely to reach more people than those present in a situation. Sufficient attention for communication can only be assumed when people are present in time and space. However, attention cannot be assumed from people present either, since they either do not want to communicate or could do something else in the same interaction system than pay attention to communication.
- Even if communication is understood, it is unlikely that the recipient will accept what the sender intended. Success here means that what is communicated is adopted as the premises of one's own actions.
Luhmann says that these three improbabilities lead to failure to communicate. That is why he calls them “the threshold of discouragement”. A solution to one of these problems also makes it harder to find solutions to the other two.
swell
- Biography Niklas Luhmann. In: 50 Classics of Sociology. Website of the University of Graz, accessed on April 20, 2015 .
- Niklas Luhmann (1981): The improbability of communication . In: Claus Pias et al. (Ed.): Kursbuch Medienkultur . dva, Munich 2008, p. 55-66 .