Sustainable Touristic Development in Rural Areas

Nicolopoulos Philippos — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The mass conventional tourism, mainly appeared in coastal areas of southern countries with mild weather and warm summer in the last 50-60 years, had negative impacts on the natural environment and on local cultures. This kind of tourism gave priority to the increase of economic profit of local societies “selling” natural advantages to people who liked summer vacation “relax”. On the contrary in the last years, exactly because of the aforementioned negative impacts, there exists a tendency for a sustainable touristic development, connected with the so-called alternative and qualitative tourism. This is another kind of tourism which intends to combine the meeting of the desires of tourists, the reinforcement of local and national economy of countries and the non-degradation of natural and cultural capital of the touristic areas. That’s why it began to turn to other activities which are more “qualitative” and to consider the protection of natural environment as an issue of first priority. From this point of view the rural areas, exactly, because many times are more “virgin” and “exciting” compared with the crowded coastal zones are preferable. In the present article I propose how systems theory and sociocybernetics can contribute to the sustainable development of this kind, based on an “intelligent” control system which applies their principles and their perspective.

Algorithmic Differentiation of Society – a Luhmann Perspective on the Societal Impact of Digital Media

Jesper Taekke — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The aim of this article is to put forward Luhmann's theory of social differentiation as the way society as a social system has organized itself internally after it has differentiated itself out from its external environment. The question discussed is if we are facing a new form of differentiation triggered by digital media. To answer the question, the article puts forward Luhmann´s theory and the historical forms of differentiation he described. After that the article shows how the triggering factor, in a non-deterministic way, for Luhmann is communication media. A new differentiation form emerges when the dynamic and complexity of society has increased to such an extent, i.e., other forms of differentiation have grown in latency, that a new form can take over. After the introduction to the theory and the interpretations of it, it is discussed if and how a new form of differentiation is under development. The discussion circles around how to interpret contemporary developments as signs of how the new differentiation form works. The article concludes that functional differentiation is surpassed by a new basic form of differentiation which is the algorithmic differentiation of society.

Journal of Sociocybernetics

Sustainable Touristic Development in Rural Areas

Algorithmic Differentiation of Society – a Luhmann Perspective on the Societal Impact of Digital Media