Knoblauch Hubert

Bio: Knoblauch Hubert is an academic researcher. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publication(s) receiving 65 citation(s).

The Communicative Construction of Reality

Abstract: of Thomas Luckmann and Peter Berger, to a communicative constructivism that acknowledges communication as an embodied form of action in its own right, according to which social actors, in engaging in communicative action, construct a material social reality that guides, delimits, and enables actions. A study of the importance of understanding the role of communication in an age in which digitization and mediatization have extended the reach of communication to a global level and brought about the emergence of the communication society, The Communicative Construction of Reality shows how communication society does not merely replace modern society and its hierarchical institutions, but complements it in a manner that continually results in conflicts leading to the refiguration of society. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in the sociology of knowledge, communication, and social theory.

Resurrecting organization without renouncing society: A response to Ahrne, Brunsson and Seidl

Abstract: In a recent article in this journal, Ahrne, Brunsson, and Seidl (2016) suggest a definition of organization as a ‘decided social order’ composed of five elements (membership, rules, hierarchies, monitoring, and sanctions) which rest on decisions. ‘Partial organization’ uses only one or a few of these decidable elements while ‘complete organization’ uses them all. Such decided orders may also occur outside formal organizations, as the authors observe. Although we appreciate the idea of improving our understanding of organization(s) in modern society, we believe that Ahrne, Brunsson, and Seidl's suggestion jeopardizes the concept of organization by blurring its specific meaning. As the authors already draw on the work of Niklas Luhmann, we propose taking this exploration a step further and the potential of systems theory more seriously. Organizational analysis would then be able to retain a distinctive notion of formal organization on the one hand while benefiting from an encompassing theory of modern society on the other. With this extended conceptual framework, we would expect to gain a deeper understanding of how organizations implement and shape different societal realms as well as mediate between their particular logics, and, not least, how they are related to non-organizational social forms (e.g. families).

From Nonprofit Diversity to Organizational Multifunctionality: A Systems–Theoretical Proposal

Abstract: The remarkable feature of the nonprofit sector is its astonishing diversity. This feature gets short shrift in the traditional market or governmental failure theories of the nonprofit sector. Drawi...

‘Fake news’ is the invention of a liar: How false information circulates within the hybrid news system:

Abstract: Alarmed by the oversimplifications related to the ‘fake news’ buzzword, researchers have started to unpack the concept, defining diverse types and forms of misleading news. Most of the existing wor...