Võim süsteemis kui semiootiline probleem (uue meedia näitel)
Power in systems as a semiotic problem (the example of new media)

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses semiotic ways to approach power in the semiotic dynamics. It argues that the role of power is becoming increasingly visible in the evolutionary processes of semiotic objects such as modern new media forms. As the development of the latter is straightforwardly extremely investment-intensive and dependent on the technological development “underneath”, as well as on the political regulation, it becomes increasingly relevant to question how power is applied in these different domains as social systems in Niklas Luhmann’s terms, and how do these “different kinds” of power relate to each other and eventually influence the evolution of semiotic objects such as media forms. The article claims that as in this way the evolution of semiotic objects depends directly on economic and political motives or social dynamics, one hence has to look for a dialogue between the academic metalanguages that are modelling these dynamics from different disciplinary perspectives. The article shows that for understanding the power dynamics that guides the semiotic dynamics in the modern society, the semiotic discipline in the form of Lotman’s semiospheric approach has to learn from the social theories of power developed in economic innovation studies, as well as by Niklas Luhmann and Michel Foucault. In the end the article cautions for uncritical modelling of the modern media-evolution with the semiospheric centre-periphery dynamics and suggests complementing it with the concept of dialogic control.

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