Giddens' "structuration," Luhmann's "self-organization," and the operationalization of the dynamics of meaning

Luhmann’s social systems theory and Giddens’ structuration theory of action share an emphasis on reflexivity, but focus on meaning along a divide between inter-human communication and intentful action as two different systems of reference. Recombining these two theories, simulations of interaction, organization, and self-organization of intentional communication can be distinguished by using algorithms from the computation of anticipatory systems. The self-organizing and organizing layers remain rooted in the double contingency of the human encounter which provides the variation. Organization and self-organization of communication are reflexive upon and therefore reconstructive of each other. Using mutual information in three dimensions, the imprint of meaning processing in the modeling system on the historical organization of uncertainty in the modeled system can be measured. This is shown empirically in the case of intellectual organization as “structurating” structure in the textual domain of scientific articles.