Systems Theory Perspectives on Social Digitalisation and Techniques of Affection

In recent years, major proponents of systems theory have developed an update of their theoretical-analytical apparatus to address the pressing questions of the rise of digital techniques and technologies in contemporary society. Whereas one influential offer (D. Baecker) emphasizes the escalating importance of possibilities and compulsions to networking in the (digital) next society, another (A. Nassehi) advocates a sociology of knowledge that focusses on the role of pattern recognition with the help and constraints of digital techniques. While these positions propose different diagnoses concerning the (r)evolutionary effects, i.e. the very novelty of digitalisation for the structure of modern society, they nevertheless both stress (a) the need to deepen the sociological conceptualization of social digitalisation beyond phenomena of merely technological transformations, thereby inviting a reluctant sociology to (b) reflect on processes of digitalisation as problems of observation, i.e. as problems for the conceptual and analytical distinctions and tools that can adequately address social digitalisation.

This paper will address systems theory approaches as helpful supplements, but also as challenges for the theory of Social Digitalisation (Kornelia Hahn). It will focus on new and changing techniques of affections brought about by social digitalisation (and accompanying technological reconfigurations) – as questions for empirical research as well as challenges for social theory and the suitable terminology sociology has as yet to develop.