Even today, opinion is split on Niklas Luhmann’s life’s work in sociology – systems theory. Critics regard it as an easily understandable abstract theory made in an ivory tower of academia that avoids any kind of moral position; it's proponents view it as a innovative approach to observing human interaction.

Luhmann began his academic career studying law but later became professor of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld in 1968. Until his death in 1997, he made a detailed study of the key areas of society: economics, science, law, art and religion. The focus of Luhmann’s theory is the concept of the simplified functions of systems. In his opinion, the reality of mass media is created by mass media itself. The logical consequence of this is that individual people do not communicate with other people, but that communication communicates relentlessly with itself. Luhmann’s theory is popular today in other academic disciplines such as literary studies. His method of working with a methodologically sophisticated card index box has become legendary.