The autopoietisation of Austrian print journalism

The project The "autopoietisation of Austrian print journalism" intends to observe journalism by means of the new interdisciplinary theory of autopoietic (self-reproductive) systems. The father of this theory, the neurophilosopher Humberto R. Maturana, has often stressed the consequences of his biological theory on information, communication and the emergence of social systems. Several authors and scientists in Germany have adopted Maturanas theory (also known as a constructivist bio-epistemology) for communication research - under influence of the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. They observe mass media and journalism as autopoietic systems, which do not represent reality, but construct factuality through own operations, selections and constructions. Media Systems are therefore operationally closed systems which do not integrate but irritate society. The new constructivist systems theory of mass media has so far not been used for empiric research. We want to operationalize these theories to observe journalism and the actions, beliefs... of journalists in new and innovative ways. The empirical research will be done qualitatively and quantitatively. Topics will be: The objectivity and facticity of articles, the self-image of journalists, the economical pressure, the cybernetic work routines, the virtualisation of work, the visualization and aesthetics of print products, the structural couplings to politics, the reduction of complexity in texts, the construction of reality, the self-reference, the metamedialisation of news etc. The study should be the first investigation of how Austrian journalists see themselves and their work - which will have consequences for media reception and the common notion of the "reality of the media". We want to continue the anglo-american tradition of Tuchman, Fishman and others who were inspired by ethnomethodological and phenomenological theories and also gave up the notion that journalists could represent reality or reflect the outer world - that what really has happened.