Steven Johnson, although being a reference in research on Digital Communication addresses this issue only tangentially in most of his work: Johnson's books are, at the same time, examples and defenses of an epistemological proposal that integrates systems thinking and interdisciplinary approach to what he calls long zoom. This article, through a literature review of the work of Johnson, analyzes the application of long zoom in the critique of Mass Communication, concluding that, in this perspective, it emerges as a social phenomenon whose impact is better understood if: a) approached via the abstraction of Cybernetics; b) focusing on the models of information flow; and c) understood as particular manifestation of general phenomena.
Communication epistemology; Theories of Communication; Steven Johnson; Long zoom; Cybernetics