Autopoiesis Theory as a Methodological Basis for Internet Communication Research

Abstract

   A special place in the process of interpersonal interaction belongs to the Internet, which has become an integral part of the life of a civilized society, which could not but affect the form and method of communication, which nowadays has largely moved from the real world to the virtual world and entailed a number of changes in the very nature and structure of interpersonal communication. The significant changes that communication is undergoing due to the development of computer technology require special study and therefore represent an important research task. At the same time, it is relevant to take into account that the participants of communication on the Internet use a fundamentally new arsenal of means of representation of thought, in which verbal ways of making statements are integrated with non-verbal means.

   The objective of the current study is to consider communication as a flexible dynamic process with a large number of possible ways of development. The paper focuses on the autopoesis theory as a methodological platform for the study of communication in the Internet space. This approach allows us to consider the dynamics of Internet-mediated communication and model communicants’ behavior, thereby describing the processality of communicative interaction based on such adaptive parameters as activity, language capacity and structurality. When considering communication from the autopoiesis perspective, it allows to identify cause-and-effect relationships in the behavior of communicants and talk about a communicative act as a process with several acceptable development options. Adaptation as the basis of all the activities of communicants makes it possible to state the behavior of participants in the Internet-forums and chats from the point of view of their individual characteristics, interests and values, and not to consider them as components of a fixed scheme of interaction.