Thomas Bauer from the University of Vienna discussed concepts related to understanding social change in media societies. He argued that society, communication, social change, and the future are concepts of observation used to analyze and understand how society thinks about itself. Bauer also noted that social change represents a descriptive metaphor for experiencing alterations in the social environment over time through conceptual frameworks. Understanding the interconnectivity of these concepts provides a terminological model for comprehending the auto-constitutive relationship between society, culture, communication, and organization.

1. COMMUNICATION & SOCIAL CHANGE
NOVI SAD 29. Nov. 2012
Thomas A. Bauer, University of Vienna, Austria:
UNDERSTANDING CHANCES OF MEDIA SOCIETY

2. 4 UNKNOWN MEASURES BUT MEASURES OF OBSERVATION
• Society: A concept of Observation
Society is what its Communication is like
Society Is as we think about it
Analyzing the Society: Reflecting how we think about it / observing why we observe it as we do:
embracing, next against next, next to next
• Communication: A Concept of Observation of Social Practice
Communication is the unification of difference and the distribution of sociability:
consensus and difference
• Social Change: A Concept of Observation:
Not appropriative for an analytical explanation society:
A model of knowledge (interpretative) not a model of proof (representative)
• Future : A Concept of Observation:
Not appropriative for an analytical explanation society,
A causal model of evolution, s surprise model, a discourse model
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

3. Culture and Organisation of Unknown Measures
Knowledge Model: Idea
Society, Communication, Fut
ure, Change…….
Model of Proof: Reality
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

4. Culture and Organisation of Unknown Measures
Knowledge Model: Idea
THEORY OBSERVATION and ORGANIZATION PRACTICE
Model of Proof: Reality
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

5. Interests of Observation and Acting
Normative Critical
THEORY OBSERVATION and ORGANIZATION PRACTICE
Empirical Pragmatic
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

6. Premising Position: The Terminology of SC
• Social change: a descriptive metaphor:
The term SC conceptualizes the experience of alteration and the difference of social
environment along the time line (logical simulation)
and thus it organizes cognitively and scientifically the change of experience through
concepts: (next-level-)observation of (first-level-)observation
• Social change: a terminological model:
for the interconnectivity of conceptualization understanding the social environment:
the auto-constitutive relationship of concepts: society, culture, communication, and
organization
• Social change: an operative fiction:
the order of things is not their own, it is our construction of meaning – the construction
of meaning (reality) always is challenged by ist contingent side ( not necessary, but also
not impossible)
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

7. Interest of Knowledge: Understand SC in its Cultural Dimension
• Social change: a change of relevance: of what social/society/sociability
means in context of life:
– The relevance of society to the individual life
– The relevance if individual to the society
– The relevance of sociability between individuals
• Social change: a change of culture: social rituals, institutions and symbolic environment:
– Mind and habit in designing individual life
– The attitudes understanding the society, its demands, values, norms and its institutions
– The behaviour/interaction among individuals in respect to mutual awareness
• Social change: an operative motif of social development:
PR qualities of sustainability: : transparency, credibility, sociability,
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

8. Interest of Knowledge: Understand SC in its Cultural Dimension
• Social change: a change of communication: as the modus operandi of
society and its mechanism of trust:
– Technology: minimizing the inclination of failure, outsourcing the problem of
disappointment, enabling to overcome limits, standardizing aesthetics and design
– Media: mediatization / mediality: the frame of reference of symbolic interaction turns
tentatively from social action of observation to social observation of action (cf Flusser)
– Mechanism (system) of trust: the social mechanism of reduction of complexity is
challenged by a (new) complexity of social mechanisms (inclusion vs. exclusion, winner
vs. looser, redistribution of centre-periphery-relation)
– Social Orders of Communication: commitment, hierarchy, discourse:
from communication to conversation?
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

9. Interest of Knowledge: Understand SC in its Cultural Dimension
• Social change: represented as a change of structures: representing the change
in social, cultural and symbolic environment:
- change of arrangements of social relations in institution, organization
and social networks
- change of social techniques in organizing the indvidual and the social
life: technological change
• Media change: a change of culture of communication: representing the
change in how the society constitutes itself:
new programme of social mediality
- Change of arrangements of social relations in institution, organization
and social networks
- Change of social techniques in organizing the indvidual and the social
life: technological change
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at

10. References
• Bauer, Thomas A. (2011): In Zukunft mehr Kommunikation. Gesellschaft im
Spiegel des Medienwandels. In: Koschnick, Wolfgang (ed.): FOCUS
Jahrbuch 2011. Schwerpunkt: Die Zukunft der klassischen elektronischen
Medien. München (Focus), p. 465 - 546
• Bauer, Thomas A. (2011): Globalisierung aus
kommunikationswissenschaftlicher Perspektive. In: Dvorak, Johann /
Mückler, Herrmann (ed.): Staat, Globalisierung, Migration. Wien
(Facultas.wuv), p. 133 - 158
• Bauer, Thomas A. (2012): Medienbildung. Das Kompetenzmotiv ziviler
Gesellschaft und das Wissensmotiv der Kommunikationswissenschaft. In:
Springer, Nina et. al. (ed.): Medien und Journalismus im 21. Jahrhundert.
Herausforderungen für die
Kommunikationswissenschaft, Journalistenausbildung und Medienpraxis.
Konstanz – München (UKV), p. 47 - 74
thomas.bauer@univie.ac.at