GREGORY BATESON, NIKLAS LUHMANN, AND ECOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION

摘要

Cognizant of the evolving academic discipline of ecological communication (EC), I offer this essay as a follow-up to my previous publication-a critical exegesis of Niklas Luhmann's Ecological Communication (1989)-in this journal. Hoping to throw more light on Luhmann's formulations, I introduce and interpret those writings of Gregory Bateson that apparently influenced the former-and or attempted to link ecology with communication. While I do not necessarily advocate either of these two thinkers' overall philosophical frameworks, I believe that they deserve attention-at the least insofar as they provide a measure of contrast to the contemporary academic discourse of EC (which remains shallow, intellectually parochial, and nonrigorous). That aside, many specific ideas developed by these two thinkers will interest a wide range of constituencies-especially those devoted to the study of information, communication, and ecology.