Abstract
Although Niklas Luhmann did not produce a work with a critical objective, his sociological theory holds unexplored potential that can be used to advance critical analyzes of various social dimensions (economics, law, politics, etc.). We chose, here, to use these potentials to observe the possibilities of making a critique regarding the dimension of the mass media system. We argue that, in it, criticism reveals itself (1) in the observation of the arbitrariness of the social values that the media construct and (2) in the ignorance of the communicative plurality of modernity, which in turn (3) allows us to see the theory of Luhmann as one that reveals absurdities.
Keywords:
Luhmann; Mass media; Criticism; Media; Sociological theory