The result of these inventions is that the entire world has become communicable. The phenomenology of being is replaced by the phenomenology of communication. We see the world as visual communication suggests it to us--even if not so dramatic, not in such high contrast, not so flawless, not so colorful, and, above all, not so select. The world we perceive, both the normally perceived world and the television world, pales under the constant drive to outbid. What is more, the very aspect that had been fascinating in language now declines, namely, the possibility and necessity of distinguishing between information and utterance. Although we still see people talking on television, indeed, even viewers again play a part in the medium, be it only as ridiculous background laughter indicating that there is something to laugh about, the entire arrangement evades the controls that had been developed over thousands of years on the basis of distinguishability between utterance and information. For this reason, the yes/no coding of linguistic communication also fails. We can be positively or negatively affected by a film, we can find it good or bad, but, in the overall complex of what is perceived, the intensification is lacking that would allow a clear distinction to be drawn between acceptance and rejection. Although we know that it is communication, we do not see it. This can raise suspicions of manipulation, which cannot, however, be substantiated. We know it, we live with it. Television produces a produced form that binds all everyday means of persuasion. And the other side of the form is precisely the suspicion of manipulation.

--Niklas Luhmann, Theory of Society