The Notion of the “Blurring Boundaries”

Abstract

The notion of the “blurring boundaries” has become a flashy label to characterize the way journalism is manifestly changing in the age of the internet. This article explores this idea of de-boundedness and discusses the question whether there is anything more behind it than a catch-all diagnosis for the processes of change and transformation in the circumstances of communication in society, in general, and for journalism, in particular. To this end, de-boundedness as a proposition initially receives a more concrete definition. Its foundations in theories of differentiation and especially in the theory of social systems by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann will be discussed, where differentiation, that is, drawing lines of demarcation, is the essential factor. It is shown that systems theory provides different possibilities for characterizing forms of de-differentiation or “blurring boundaries”. Within systems theory they can be interpreted in terms of the evolutionary emergence of new forms of journalism, the co-evolutionary processes between journalism and its environment and/or as interpenetrations of journalism with other societal systems. It is demonstrated that changes in journalism oscillate between differentiation and de-differentiation, so that it can be described as a (de-)differentiated phenomenon.

KEYWORDS:

• de-differentiation
• differentiation
• internet
• journalism
• journalism studies
• systems theory
• theory of social systems

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the translators Dr Stan Jones and Anja Welle.

Notes

1. There are various “theories of social differentiation”. The sociologist, Uwe Schimank (2007), points to the long tradition behind the perspective taken by such theories and, in his textbook, manufactures, for example, a systematics which both makes connections and sets boundaries between the ideas of classical figures in sociology (Durkheim, Simmel, Weber, Marx), on the theory of differentiation, as well as between Talcott Parsons’ view of social differentiation via systems and environment, and Niklas Luhmann’s view of social differentiation, together with approaches to social differentiation via the theory of actors.