Banca de DEFESA: Lidiane Rodrigues Domingues

Uma banca de DEFESA de DOUTORADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : Lidiane Rodrigues Domingues
DATE: 15/12/2025
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: https://conferenciaweb.rnp.br/sala/lidiane-rodrigues-domingues
TITLE:

Socio-Terran Observations: Mass Communication and Environmental Risks in Modernity

KEY WORDS:

Social Systems Theory; Socio-Terran Observations; Environmental Risks; Mass Media; Public Opinion; Modernization; United Kingdom; United States; China

PAGES: 597
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: Sociologia
SUMMARY:

This thesis investigates different ways in which modern society observes environmental risks from the perspective of Niklas Luhmann's General Theory of Social Systems (GTSS). The central objective is to comparatively analyze socio-terran observations – a term coined to designate social communications/actions that select information and update expectations regarding the natural environment – in three distinct national contexts: the United Kingdom, the United States, and China. The research demonstrates that, with modernization and the predominance of functional differentiation, these observations have become more specialized and, paradoxically, have increased societal dependence on nature. Methodologically, the analysis focuses on the mass media system as the privileged locus for observing the construction of public opinion on environmental risks. Through a systemically oriented historical sociology, the thesis describes and compares the specific semantic trajectories of each country: in the United Kingdom, observations are marked by the resonance of historical atmospheric risks and by a public opinion more aligned with global scientific and political communications. In the United States, controversy becomes a central selective parameter, resulting in public opinion divided between skeptics and proponents of the environmental agenda. In China, observations are profoundly influenced by a reinterpreted archaic semantics and a unique modernization process, where the press operates in close coupling with the political system. The comparison reveals different semantic orientations, forms of journalistic observation, patterns of information dissemination, and degrees of resonance between public opinion and the environmental agenda. The thesis argues that, faced with global environmental risks, world society does not produce a homogeneous response, but a myriad of local descriptions, each filtered by historically consolidated semantics. This research advances TGSS by integrating nature more centrally into the theory and offers an analytical tool for understanding the complex co-evolution between society and nature in modernity.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1642428 - FABRICIO MONTEIRO NEVES
Externo à Instituição - LÉO PEIXOTO RODRIGUES - UFPel
Externo à Instituição - RAFAEL ANTUNES ALMEIDA - UNILAB
Interna - 2529076 - SAYONARA DE AMORIM GONCALVES LEAL
Interno - 1505195 - SERGIO BARREIRA DE FARIA TAVOLARO