La minaccia ecologica come forma di comunicazione. Il punto di vista della teoria dei sistemi sociali di Niklas Luhmann

In recent years, ecology has once again risen to the top of the political agenda attracting, at the same time, the attention of the mass media system. This paper outlines how the social systems theory developed by Niklas Luhmann deals with ecological issues and what is the originality of this approach. It focuses on ecological threats as a form of communication, on the operational closure of social systems and its relationship with causality, and on resonance. It finally shows that the pandemic COVID-19 could be investigated from this sociological viewpoint as a threat coming from human environment.