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Purpose: Theoretical generalisation provides the basis for tackling problems of service complexity, fragmentation and disrupted care pathways. Design/methodology/approach: Recent mental health service transformation in Wales, United Kingdom, has been stimulated by a policy programme underpinned by person-centred recovery values. This paper offers analysis informed by the perspectives of Niklas Luhmann and other noted theorists to examine escalating service system complexity related to this transformation. Analysis builds upon the findings of a qualitative study employing thematic discourse analysis of talk of people with mental illness and associated workers. Findings: In total, three themes were constructed in participants' talk: "Competing versions of recovery", "Misaligned service expectations" and "Disrupted care pathways." Recovery may be understood as a form of moral communication and autopoietic meaning-making activity, according to Luhmann's radical constructionist epistemology. This has the potential to generate competing versions of recovery, a key contributor to escalating complexity. Research limitations/implications: Findings could be developed further by continued investigation of the relationship between recovery implementation and service fragmentation. Social implications: A more judicious, balanced policy-implementation may cultivate optimal conditions for recovery pluralism by avoiding polarisation towards either top-down, policy-based recovery implementation or a proliferation of approaches at the grassroots level. Findings have implications for healthcare settings beyond the scope of mental healthcare, given the prevalence of person-centred care internationally. Originality/value: A simplistic view of recovery implementation should be challenged. Recovery should not be considered a "magic bullet" for mental healthcare delivery. Haphazard recovery-implementation may have detrimental effects of escalating complexity, service fragmentation and disrupted care pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the philosophical roots of Luhmann's theory in relation to its anti-totalitarian elements. Design/methodology/approach: The paper offers a conceptual discussion of the critical and anti-totalitarian angle in Niklas Luhmann's system theory. Findings: This paper finds that systems theory has a critical potential. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge the anti-totalitarian element of Niklas Luhmann's system theory has not be discussed before the present contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to show how a sociological description – a swarm analysis of the Nazi dictatorship – initially made with the means borrowed from George Spencer-Brown's Calculus of Indications, can be transformed into a digital circuit and with which methods and tools of digital mathematics this digital circuit can be analyzed and described in its behavior. Thus, the paper also aims to contribute to a better understanding of Chapter 11 of "Laws of Form." Design/methodology/approach: The analysis uses methods of automata theory for finite, deterministic automata. Basic set operations of digital mathematics and special set operations of the Boolean Differential Calculus are used to calculate digital circuits. The software used is based on ternary logic, in which the binary Boolean logic of the elements {0, 1} is extended by the third element "Don't care" to {0, 1, −}. Findings: The paper confirms the method of transforming a form into a digital circuit derived from the comparative functional and structural analysis of the Modulator from Chapter 11 of "Laws of Form" and defines general rules for this transformation. It is shown how the indeterminacy of re-entrant forms can be resolved in the medium of time using the methods of automata theory. On this basis, a refined definition of the degree of a form is presented. Originality/value: The paper shows the potential of interdisciplinary approaches between sociology and information technology and provides methods and tools of digital mathematics such as ternary logic, Boolean Differential Calculus and automata theory for application in sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In a context of critical transition such as the COVID-19 pandemic, moral semantics take a prominent role as a form of self-description of society. However, they are not usually observed, but rather assumed as self-evident and necessarily "good." The purpose of the article is to summarize the theory of morality from the social systems' perspective and illustrate with concrete examples the polemogenous nature of moral communication. Design/methodology/approach: This article presents an analysis of the role of morality in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory. Applying the method of second-order observation, it describes three cases of moral semantics disseminated via mass media and social media, and it examines their connection with the structural situation of subsystems of society during the pandemic crisis (particularly healthcare, politics and science). Findings: Second-order observation of moral communication demonstrates to be fruitful to describe the conditions and consequences in which moralization of communication occurs, particularly in a situation of critical transition around the healthcare crisis. The three examples examined, namely, the hero semantics directed to healthcare workers, the semantics of indiscipline and the controversies around pseudo-sciences and conspiracy theories, show how they are based on social attribution of esteem and disesteem, how they try to answer to troublesome situations and contradictions that seem difficult to cope, and how they are close related to the emergence of conflicts, even when they seem positive oriented and well intentioned. Originality/value: This paper is an attempt to test the usefulness of Luhmann's theory of society to understand the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and particularly the role of moral communication in concrete examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to review Luhmann's theory of moral communication while focusing on symmetry conditions, in light of Armin Nassehi's criticism, to clarify issues regarding this concept. Then, Luhmann's symmetry condition is reconstructed as a concept containing double meaning via a case study in Japan. Correspondingly, interesting situations and characteristics of moral communication, such as "inflation," the "polemogene" and ubiquity of moral communication, are interpreted more consistently. Design/methodology/approach: In today's society, moral communication may spiral out of control and even be fatal. By examining Niklas Luhmann's theory, in this paper, the author elaborates on why and how this mechanism occurs. Findings: The author emphasizes that the suspicion pertaining to the asymmetry of communication is stressed in the case of anonymity. When an individual communicates using a moral code, it is impossible to discern whether the implications of self-bindingness are undermined or not through observations or consequences of communication and can only be questioned or confirmed through communication. However, criticizing the outburst of the masses and exchanging blame by isolating only one aspect of such a phenomenon will only be superficial. Originality/value: This study reveals that the very condition that makes moral communication possible enables people to communicate respectfully or contemptuously with others without any special qualification. Such an analysis can serve as a theoretical underpinning for the analysis of today's phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explain the US society's insignificant mitigation of climate change using Niklas Luhmann's (1989) autopoietic social systems theory in ecological communication. Specifically, the author's analysis falls within the context of Luhmann re-moralized while focusing on particular function systems' binary codes and their repellence of substantive US climate change mitigation policy across systems. Design/methodology/approach: The author achieves this purpose by resituating Luhmann's conception of evolution to forgo systems teleology and better contextualize the spatial-temporal scale of climate change; reinforcing complexity reduction and differentiation by integrating communication and media scholar John D. Peters's (1999) "communication chasm" concept as one mechanism through which codes sustain over time; and applying these integrated concepts to prominent the US climate change mitigation attempts. Findings: The author concludes that climate change mitigation efforts are the amalgamation of the systems' moral communications. Mitigation efforts have relegated themselves to subsystems of the ten major systems given the polarizing nature of their predominant care/harm moral binary. Communication chasms persist because these moral communications cannot both adhere to the systems' binary codes and communicate the climate crisis's urgency. The more time that passes, the more codes force mitigation organizations, activist efforts and their moral communications to adapt and sacrifice their actions to align with the encircling systems' code. Social implications: In addition to the conceptual contribution, the social implication is that by identifying how and why climate change mitigation efforts are subsumed by the larger systems and their codes, climate change activists and practitioners can better tool their tactics to change the codes at the heart of the systems if serious and substantive climate change mitigation is to prevail. Originality/value: To the author's knowledge, there has not been an integration of a historical communication concept into, and sociological application of, ecological communication in the context of climate change mitigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The paper combines the systems theoretical perspective on the evolution of societal differentiation and the emergence of codes in communication. By combining the approach by Niklas Luhmann with a historical theology on the development of Christian morality split between God and Devil, it recreates a sociological point of observation on contemporary moral forms by a temporary occupation of the retired Christian Devil. Design/methodology/approach: The article combines a Luhmannian systems theoretical perspective on the evolution of societal differentiation with a concept of emerging codes in communication. The latter is based on on the development of a Christian view of morality being split between God and Devil. It establishes a sociological point of observation on contemporary moral forms through the temporary invocation of the retired figure of the Christian Devil. Findings: The proposed perspective develops a healthy perspective on the exuberant distribution of a health(y) morality across the globe during the pandemic crisis of 2020–21. The temporary invocation of the retired Christian Devil as point of departure in this sociological analysis allows for a disturbing view on the unlimited growth of the morality of health and its inherent dangers of dedifferentiating the highly specialised forms of societal differentiation and organisation. Originality/value: By applying the diabolical perspective, the analytical framework creates a unique opportunity to observe the moral encodings of semantic forms in detail, while keeping the freedom of scientific enquiry to choose amongst available distinctions in the creation of sound empirical knowledge. This article adopts a neutral stance, for the good of sociological analysis. The applications of the term "evil" to observations of communication are indifferent to anything but itself and its qualities as scientific enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: There is a growing worry about people possibly isolating themselves in online bubbles and avoiding contact with ideas that differ from their beliefs, creating a scenario of ideological polarization. To investigate into this matter, this work aims for a reflection about the contingency of communication in social media. Does social media make the experience of communication in the digital space more contingent (providing it with more possibilities, with people accessing different contents and ideas) or less contingent (reducing the available possibilities, making people isolate themselves)? Design/methodology/approach: This is a theoretical work, constructed through bibliographical reviews. To reflect about the question that are posed, the author selected Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory to approach the concept of contingency. In addition to that, the author presented the main arguments of the debates about echo chambers and online bubbles. In the end, the author combined the two reviews together using elements of the Luhmannian theory and drew some conclusions about the initial question. Findings: The study concluded that social media have an ambivalent potential regarding contingency in the digital space: it can both expand or reduce the available possibilities of communication, depending on criteria like topic, potential of diffusion and focus of attention. There is no one-side effect. Research limitations/implications: The approach at echo chambers does not reflect "the" form of contingency in social media, but "a" form. Therefore, the study cannot provide any general conclusions about the relation between contingency and social media. The digital space is a large one, and more studies are required to achieve more substantial propositions. Originality/value: The research has an originality value both for systems theory and social media studies. First, because, as far as the author knows, no other system-theoretical argument has taken the connection between contingency and social media as a primary analysis object. Second, because of a theoretical interpretation effort, the studies of echo chambers indicate mixed results about the phenomenon of online isolation, but no attempt was made to make sense of these mixed results from a specific sociological theory. The author did that by using Luhmann's theoretical framework, which proved to be a good tool for explaining and unifying these different results on a more abstract level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The present article pertains to recent advances in social systems theoretical analyses of moral communication. Design/methodology/approach: An introduction to basic concepts and requirements for systems-theoretical approaches to morality and communication is provided, as is an introduction to 14 contributions to a pertinent special issue of Kybernetes. Findings: The review of these 14 cases suggests that social systems theory enables researchers to study moral communication without necessarily performing it. Originality/value: This article reappraises and challenges Niklas Luhmann's occasionally distanced attitude to morality, which has occasionally been understood as a form of moral communication itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]