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Observing Differences: A system-theoretical Conceptualization of New Media Mookyu Kim (Pukyong National University) This paper aims to delineate a new concept of media in terms of Niklas Luhmann’s system theory. Niklas Luhmann is well known for his pursuit of the theorization of the social construction from the viewpoint of the communication and media. Although he commented on the operation and effect of the computer partially in his double volume book, Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft, the details of the new media concept was not fully comprehensible. Yet, his system-theoretical media concept had already insinuated on this issue, especially when he put forward the distinct characteristics of the art media in a communicative environment. Art in communication is when the difference between the media and the form itself becomes the media or the form in the second order of observation, and only when this recursive transformation remains consistent. This description of the communicative art media based on the differentiation between the first order and second order media is a necessity in order to comprehend the new media. The modality and variability of the digital codes, which symbolizes the uniqueness of the new media, provides the positive environment to this media/form- differentiation.