The medium of addressability: on the consequences of the increasing decoupling of social addressing from individual consciousness

Purpose This study investigates how digital communication is transforming social addressing in modern, functionally differentiated society. Drawing on Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, it examines the shift from polycontextural addressing – where individuals are addressed differently across functional systems – to monocontextural, profile-based addressing enabled by persistent digital user profiles. It also evaluates whether it is scientifically meaningful to grant social addressability to machines such as chatbots. Design/methodology/approach The analysis employs a functional-structural approach grounded exclusively in sociological systems theory. Building on a systems-theoretical understanding of social addresses, addressability is conceptualized as a medium of loosely coupled elements and empirically tested through systematic investigation of developments in the fields of digital identification, surveillance technologies, biometric data and social credit mechanisms. Findings Digital communication has enabled a societal shift from polycontextural to monocontextural addressing through user profiles, Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) - card registration, biometric identification and digital identity systems. This monocontextural addressability allows personal characteristics to take precedence over functional and factual criteria, enabling organizational regulation of access to social spheres – as was observable during the COVID-19 lockdowns, in the Chinese social credit system, and in morally charged culture wars. This development carries the potential for totalitarian organizational forms. Regarding chatbots, scientifically meaningful addressability presupposes autopoiesis based on transistor-bound operations, which have not yet been realized. Originality/value The study reconceptualizes addressability as a societal medium and provides a novel systems-theoretical diagnosis linking digital communication, the erosion of functional differentiation and the decoupling of social addresses from individual consciousness. It connects chatbot addressability to broader structural transformations rather than treating it as an isolated technological phenomenon.