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Self-Referentiality in society

21:12 / 03.10.01

I'm taking a short course on Gender and journalism. What struck me is the amount of theoretical work that has happened in, say the last 15-20 years, researching various aspects of society, then doing research on the methods of research itself, then researching the methods with which those theories have been researched.

On each stage there seems to be a feedback-mechanism, feeding the results of the research into society at large, thus affecting the thing originally examined, the act of observation changing the observed.

Of course the function of this has been researched, and the results fed back into society.

Is the above true, false or meaningless? Is it only my flawed point of view that makes me feel this process is unique to our time and relevant in explaining society and the world today?

Or is it just the drugs?

What breaks the spiral? Is the current/recent 'politically active phase' the result of the self-referential structures becoming too complex, or a result of them actually providing relevant societal analysis and information? Both/neither?

22:57 / 04.10.01

It all depends on your perception. Even this.

23:30 / 04.10.01

...seems to me that feedback is always in effect in any system, whether it be vibration theory or gossip around the corner. If you think about it, "consuming" information is just that...you take what's useful from it and add it to your own. It builds your unique perspective on things...

I think what makes it more prevelant (sp?) during these times...the cross-pollenation of such a massive amount of ideas...I mean, look at how culture existed when transportation and communication to places far away weren't available and how ideas didn't interact with as many possibilities. Now look at online forum interaction with other SIGS on the internet...big difference...

23:37 / 04.10.01

...as far as what breaks the spiral...

I guess if the origin of the information is gone and with it the process of arriving at the first state or question. Seems to relate to the original question being forgotten...but then again, is the foundation as important if its concepts are inherent in the followup question...maybe the spiral never goes away...

...and as far as the recent political climate, it seems a bit complex to deconstruct and find a "right" answer to it...society can't be formatted like hard drive...

00:52 / 05.10.01

Just so you know, journalism is inherently cyclical - we repeat and rewrite stories, which are in turn rewrites of interviews (stories) or events (stories) as retold to reporters.

That's a lot of re-'s there.

Journalism ethicists refer to the trade as a mirror to society. It's not a source of information as much as (I think Ben Franklin said this first) a substantiation of gossip. In other words, it's a way to repeat stories so they sound authoritative - so you can tell all their friends. And over and over.

And let's not get into the limitations of narrative structure and formulas of what makes a good story, since, of course, they're fairly archetypal (that is, repetitive) at root.

12:12 / 05.10.01

Didn't Habermas say the essence of the modern is self-referentiality?

16:51 / 05.10.01

We're really just in one big nautilus, always curving around but never back to the start because it's always expanding. Wheeee!

11:09 / 06.10.01

That's a dang good way to put it. Except, I don't know what a 'nautilus' is. Might someone be good enough to enlighten me?

18:07 / 06.10.01

...nautilus...as in a nautilus shell (conche) with the spiraling pattern that its shape flows to...also refering to the shape of the "golden spiral."

18:47 / 06.10.01

Biodynamics asked:
quote:What breaks the spiral? Is the current/recent 'politically active phase' the result of the self-referential structures becoming too complex, or a result of them actually providing relevant societal analysis and information? Both/neither?

If so inclined you can look at these questions through Imre Lakatos's philosophy and history of science (sort of Popper meets Kuhn) for some anwers as to how knowledge/research programmes r/evolve and function.
Metatheory (theories of theories of theories . . . ) has been all the rage in the humanities depts of universities since the failure of May 1968 (that's my theory!)to produce a partly academic led social revolution in France. The retreat into: textuality (Derrida, Barthes et al), discursive resistance (Foucault) and psychoanalytic post-structuralism (Lacan et al)are all responses to this failure of '68, replacing resistance to the real, continuing presences of the state, corporations, patriarchy, imperialism with jouissance, personal liberation - in effect self-referentiality. Nothing wrong with personal liberation/ jouiassance, but you know, divide and conquer . . .

Just though I'd say something provocative, being in a bad mood and such like. . .

09:48 / 07.10.01

quote:journalism is inherently cyclical - we repeat and rewrite stories, which are in turn rewrites of interviews (stories) or events (stories) as retold to reporters.

Which is why journalism based solely on other journalism - say, on "rolling news" networks, where information from outside can't keep up with the demand to fill airtime - goes into a classic feedback loop. And you get rubbish. Media journalism and a lot of columnists are also prone to this.

09:48 / 07.10.01

Nautilus:

BioDynamo: what breaks the cycle, of course, is making the cycle visible, eh?
If everyone sees it's a puppetshow, the natural instinct is to look for the strings.
And once the first search for the strings is revealed as another puppetshow, the next search will go off in a whole other dimension.

12:29 / 08.10.01

Cheers for explaining what a nautilus is for me guys, I been fascinated by that as a symbol for a while. In a strange synchronicity flurry, I got one mention of it from an Iain Sinclair book, Lights Out for the Territory yesterday and today I chanced upon the info that the conch shell is a sacred symbol in some Buddhist systems. Which, I suspect, fits kinda well in with the above.

12:40 / 08.10.01

the nautilus is a natural "golden mean" spiral, which is way nifty.

04:21 / 09.10.01

even if habermas is right - and I think he is, to some extent, but not entirely [and that's another topic in itself] - if we talk about self-referentiality, then we need, in the first place, to have some idea of an authentic foundation of the real... to which questions of referentiality relate... which is a whole kinda heuristic function in itself. I think this feedback function can be productive... but its a problem when its not investigated/interrogated... hence, stuff like lakatos and complexity theory. and questions of the meta-function of critiques of meta-theory... which could really do weird stuff to your head.

maybe we should just stick with the nautilus... or check out a few different accounts of all this hereor here.

[ 09-10-2001: Message edited by: medea zero ]