The Societally Corrupting Potential of Moral Communication

This systems theory study examines how digital communication's spatio‐temporally stable user profiles threaten functional differentiation in modern society. Unlike fleeting face‐to‐face interactions, social media profiles establish permanent social presence, undermining protective mechanisms against moralizing communication and privileging moral discourse. Empirical clues include shitstorms, cancel culture and social regulatory tendencies like China's social credit system and coronavirus pandemic responses. Personal moral integrity and group affiliation increasingly supersede factual competence. In order to grasp the influence of corruption on society as a whole, it is necessary to develop a universally applicable concept of corruption: Corruption is conceptualized as an operational coupling between functionally differentiated spheres. In this way, it can be shown how symbolically generalized communication media (e.g., money, power, love, faith) can combinatorially produce corrupt effects. The central thesis is that digital communication enables a renaissance of moral interaction dominance, thereby corrupting functional differentiation. The study predicts that society will shift towards more organization‐oriented structures characterized by reduced complexity and offers an innovative systems theory perspective on corruption as a communicative phenomenon that transcends individual misconduct.