the Contestant and Television: Construction of Neoliberal Conception Humanity in Systems Theory Analysis

Neoliberalism, economisation and the mass media are on everyone's lips and are highly charged in terms of their meanings and interdependencies. Martin Hofmann examines these concepts against the backdrop of Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory, and sheds light on the mechanisms employed by neoliberal regimes to construct a specific neoliberal conception of humanity - the 'Contestant' - through the economisation of society, drawing on the mass media (particularly television). The book thus operates at the confluence of the disciplines of sociology and the political economy of the media, and takes this into account by mediating between the theoretical elements from both fields that are relevant to the topic and by explicating the resulting added value. The work is therefore aimed equally at readers interested in the social phenomena described, or in the theories applied.