Stitching the Social World: The Processing of Multiple Social Structures in Communication

Abstract

Sociological theory has rarely engaged with the processing of multiple social and cultural structures in communication. The concept of “stitching” is suggested to capture this coprocessing of contexts. In line with the metaphor, communication is always imprinted by multiple social and cultural structures, thereby stitching them together. This makes communication quite complex, and it brings irritations into the structures involved. In “cross-field effects,” these have to deal with the communicative imprint of other structures and adapt to it. As a result, “structural couplings” between contexts can develop: patterns of expectations about their regular interplay. This includes the emergence of institutions spanning multiple fields (rather than springing only from one field, as in neoinstitutionalism). The construction of individual actors with multiple involvements serves as another mechanism facilitating the interplay of social structures. The social world houses various “publics” (from councils and talk shows to Twitter) that foster stitching communication between different contexts.

On July 11, 2010, the Spanish men’s national soccer team won the World Cup in South Africa, beating the Netherlands 1–0 in overtime. After the match, Spanish captain and goalkeeper Iker Casillas was interviewed by sports reporter Sara Carbonero:

Carbonero:

How are you? How do you feel?

Casillas:

[Overpowered by joy, wavering left and right] In this moment, I feel very happy, very satisfied. I’m just very happy, right. And I believe that we deserved this from beginning to end. And I only want to thank the people who always support me, my parents, my brother . . . [grabs his nose, sighs, tears welling in eyes].

Carbonero:

It’s okay [no pasa nada], let us talk about the match. Then we go back, no?

Casillas:

. . . my friends, and you [grabs Carbonero’s face with his hands, kisses her on the lips and on the cheek]. I’m going [leaves].

    [People clapping in the background]

Carbonero:

[Smiles] Madre mía! Well . . . ¹

Carbonero and Casillas were well known to be a couple at the time (and are now married). As Carbonero followed the professionally assigned task of a professional interview, Casillas wanted to share this special moment with his girlfriend. The episode illustrates the simple fact that communication frequently, if not always, touches on a number of different contexts at once.

Sociological theory has so far given insufficient attention to such instances of multiple contexts inscribed in communication. Not only does this frequently make for awkward situations and turbulence in communication, but these irritations also affect the contexts at play. Most theoretical approaches, however, focus on what can be termed “monocontextual reproduction” in social process. Sociocultural structures such as groups, networks, organizations, and fields or systems such as the economy or politics, institutions, and social categories are seen as stable and orderly because they compel individuals to behave in accordance with them:

• - Symbolic interactionism takes groups as persisting as long as interaction in them is based on the symbols and “definitions of the situation” in the group (Blumer 1969; Fine 2012).

• - Pierre Bourdieu argues that actors in social fields acquire a position-specific habitus on the basis of their resources (economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:71ff). This habitus makes them act out of a “sense of position,” stabilizing the structures of the field (Bourdieu [1980] 1990).

• - According to Niklas Luhmann ([1984] 1995, [1997] 2013), functional subsystems such as science and the economy and formal organizations (companies, universities) “produce” the communication in them, which reproduces these systems.

These approaches (and others) do not deny that symbolic interaction, social practices, or communication can take place in multiple groups, fields, or systems at once. But they offer no conceptual tools to study this multiple processing and its repercussions for social contexts. How can we come to terms with this process, how can we identify and study it empirically, and, if this is indeed a recurring phenomenon, what effects does it have for the social contexts involved?

Building on a casual remark by Harrison White, I term the basic process at play the “stitching” of multiple social contexts in communication. In stitching, communicative events carry multiple references to different contexts, each of them leaving its imprint, which in turn affects subsequent communication. In this way, different contexts temporarily interweave with one another, making for “cross-field effects” (Mora 2014; Rawolle 2005) and for “structural couplings” between systems (Luhmann [1997] 2013:108ff). Stitching can be considered a social mechanism in that communication with particular characteristics leads to specific effects on social structures. In principle, these arguments are agnostic with regard to the social theoretical vocabulary used. Therefore, in this article I aim neither to flesh out a new theoretical approach nor to improve a particular one already existing. Rather, I offer a conceptual building block that can be integrated into a number of different approaches.

In the first two sections I trace two traditions of macro-sociological theory with regard to their conceptualization of social structures and processes, and to their potential contributions to a theory of multiple processing of social structures in communication: first the systems theory of Luhmann, then field theory by Bourdieu and others. In a short interlude, I weave these threads together and offer a broad perspective of social and cultural structures as “expectations” in communicative process. Then I introduce the concept of “stitching” in the context of White’s theory of “switchings” between network domains. A short empirical illustration with the Greek bailout crisis follows. Finally, I discuss four theoretical implications with regard to zones of frequent contact among different social contexts, institutions spanning and linking multiple fields, the stitching of contexts through individuals, and publics that foster stitching communication by design.

Systems and Structural Coupling

Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems offers a prototypical theory of the social world as compartmentalized into separate spheres. Luhmann ([1984] 1995, [1997] 2013) considers all social structures as systems of self-reproducing communication. Face-to-face encounters, formal organizations (companies, administrative units), social movements, and “functional subsystems” such as science, the economy, politics, and law all consist of specific communication: face-to-face interaction, organizational decisions, scientific arguments, economic payments, political orders, and legal claims build on previous communication in these systems, they bring about the patterns of expectations in them, and they draw boundaries of meaning between the systems and their social environments. This reproduces systems such as politics, the economy, and formal organizations as recognizable persistent entities with internal structures. Luhmann’s theory is a clear example of the “monocontextual reproduction” perspective, applied to all kinds of sociocultural contexts (rather than only to groups, as in symbolic interactionism).

In contrast to Talcott Parsons’s earlier version, Luhmann radicalizes the systems theoretical perspective in two ways. First, he conceptualizes social processes as communication, rather than action. This separates the process from the individual and her subjective orientations, and coins it as distinctly social. Second, these processes are now produced by separate social systems. Systems “autopoietically” process their own elements (specific communication), making for separation and autonomy from one another. Luhmann ([1997] 2013:93) does concede that events are often part of multiple contexts. For example, the transfer of money is an operation of the economic system, but it also has repercussions in the law system. However, he does not consider the implications of the fact that both economic and judicial communication are intertwined in the same events here. Instead, he sees both as contributing to the self-referential reproduction (“autopoiesis”) of the economy and the law system as two different spheres in society.

Luhmann ([1997] 2013:108ff) also discusses social structures that form in the contact between systems. Among functional subsystems that frequently have to deal with one another, “structural couplings” develop: taxes and budgets make for political influence on the economy, as well as for economic effects on politics; contracts couple economic communication to legal norms and proceedings; and so on. These structural couplings result from the mutual observation of systems, and conditions their interplay. However, the notion of structural couplings remains a vague hint to observable patterns among systems, without systematically basing them on communicative processes underlying them.

Overall, Luhmann argues that social processes are organized in and by distinct structures. These structures consist of patterns of meaning that develop in the course of communication and that guide future communication. His notion of “structural couplings” suggests some form of interplay and adaptation between contexts but without clear conceptualization.

Fields and Institutions

Field theory builds on very different basic ideas but arrives at similar arguments concerning the “monocontextual reproduction” of social structures (fields) in social processes. I first consider Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory before turning to recent developments.

Bourdieu advances that the social world is characterized by fields such as the economy, science, the state, art, and education (Bourdieu 2022; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:71ff). True to its roots in physics and in Gestalt psychology, the notion of fields assumes a basic credo: everything that happens in a field results from its current state, not from external forces (Hesse 1962; Martin 2003; Mohr 2013). Bourdieu argues that fields make for particular orientations of actors by their involvement in the field (doxa and illusion), as well as by their positions in the field (habitus). These subjective orientations underly the actors’ practices as the processes in the field, much as in action theory. Following the doxa and the relative positions in fields, social practices by and large reproduce the field and the positions in them (Bourdieu [1980] 1990). With this basic architecture, Bourdieu’s fields resemble Luhmann’s functional subsystems (Kieserling 2008). They are patterns of meaning that reproduce by bringing about social processes (communication or practices) that tend to fall in line with existing structures.

What of relations between fields? According to Bourdieu, the positions of actors in fields are marked by the distribution of field-specific capital (e.g., economic or cultural capital). These forms of capital can be converted (Bourdieu 1986). Capital conversion thus makes for attuning and correspondence between different fields via individuals and their resources. In the confines of this article, we would want to know how exactly different fields together make for the imprint of individual habitus, and how one field can cause turbulence in another through individual practices. Bourdieu offers some observations in this regard in his case studies but no systematic arguments.

Bourdieu’s field theory made its way into neoinstitutionalism, in particular through the notion of organizational field. Neoinstitutionalism does not aspire to be a general theory of society, and its consideration of processes in fields is less geared at general theory than at guiding observations at the meso-level. One core idea of neoinstitutionalism is that cultural rules for behavior in the field—institutions—arise isomorphically from the mutual observation of actors in a field (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). This follows the general theoretical credo of explaining behavior in the field by reference to properties of that field. We recognize the same typical argument as in systems theory: structures develop in the course of social processes, and these structures then guide these processes to make for their own reproduction. Institutions are again patterns of meaning, or structures of expectations.

Field theory and neoinstitutionalism have sparked a wide range of empirical work, which frequently demonstrates that fields are not as (relatively) autonomous and independent as envisioned. For instance, Shaun Rawolle and Bob Lingard argue that policy processes and their journalistic observation frequently intertwine in “cross-field effects” (Lingard and Rawolle 2004; Rawolle 2005). Mora (2014) traces the emergence of the panethnic category of “Hispanics” as a cross-field effect out of the interplay among three organizations from different fields: the U.S. Census Bureau (administration), the National Council of la Raza (civic), and Univision (a media company). Apparently, important social phenomena such as policies and institutionalized categories arise not in autonomous fields but at their intersection.

How exactly do these cross-field effects come about? Lingard and Rawolle (2004:368ff) mainly offer a taxonomy for classifying them according to their scope and durability. Mora (2014) sees networks between organizations “spanning boundaries” between fields at work, potentially leading to “the development of new fields or new sociocultural meaning systems that bring together symbols, positions, and organizations from across different social arenas” (p. 204). Her account focuses on lobbying efforts and strategic decisions by organizational actors. In the same vein, Fligstein and McAdam (2012:60) conceptualize fields as embedded and interdependent, deriving from social relations between actors in different fields. Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury (2012:50ff) argue for an “interinstitutional system” spanning different social sectors. Organizations are always involved in a number of different institutional orders. Here the different logics intersect on the level of actors that adapt their strategies to the cultural and structural exigencies from multiple fields.

Overall, new developments in field theory and neoinstitutionalism adapt the framework to consider what is happening between fields. The short list of works just provided is far from complete, though the step from structures and processes within fields to those across or between them is still an exception. However, the overview shows that the approach has to shed its fundamental principle here: that everything happening in a field comes from its current state, rather than from outside influences. The authors chiefly point to the role of actors: in the cases of Bourdieu and of Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury, actors are involved in different fields. They convert different kinds of capital (Bourdieu), or they adapt to the cultural and structural logics of diverse fields (Thornton et al.). According to Fligstein, McAdam, and Mora, organizational actors remain firmly embedded in their own fields, but they form network relations across them. Lingard and Rawolle’s account is less systematic, but the cross-field effects seem to come from the mutual observation and adaptation of political and journalistic actors. They detail “event effects” as one of their categories, with “specific occurrences whose impacts cascade between fields (Lingard and Rawolle 2004:368). This lies closest to the idea advanced in this essay: that communicative processes frequently involve more than one field, making for their gradual interplay and adaptation. The case study by Mora can certainly be read this way, though her account emphasizes durable relations rather than ephemeral processes.

Interlude

Both the systems theoretical and the field theoretical traditions conceive of social processes as chiefly taking place within social contexts. Luhmann argues that communication is produced by social systems and makes for their reproduction. And Bourdieu sees social practices as emanating from positions in a field, making for the relative persistence of its structures. Similarly, neoinstitutionalism argues that institutions emerge isomorphically from the mutual orientation in a field, and that fields are demarcated as areas where its cultural rules hold sway.

The general perspective on social processes seems to be one of “monocontextual reproduction”: whatever happens by and large conforms to the structures in one context, whether termed field or system. And this makes for the reproduction of the respective context. The argument of “monocontextual reproduction” is quite compelling precisely for its simplicity and parsimony. It is better able to account for the persistence of social structures than for their change. And it disregards the frequent coinvolvement and interplay of multiple structures in social process. The two macro-sociological approaches also offer insights into the overlaps or mutual influence of different contexts. Luhmann devises of them as “structural couplings” among systems, making for their mutual influence and gradual attunement. However, he does not detail the precise mechanisms at work over and above giving a long list of examples. In the field theoretical tradition, fields are connected through the coinvolvement of individual or organizational actors (Bourdieu, Thornton et al.), or through relations between actors from different fields (Fligstein, McAdam, and Mora).

The focus of this article is on this multiple involvement of social and cultural structures in the same communicative process, as in the interview between Carbonero and Casillas (see the introduction). My framework here is as broad as possible in order to fit different social theoretical stances. It starts from a simple contrast between social processes or events, and various social and cultural structures forming in the process, and governing it, in line with the approaches discussed above. The conceptualization of these processes (as interaction, social action, communication, or social practices) does not matter much. However, I work with the concept of communication, because it focusses attention on the processing of meaning in social events (Fuhse 2022, 35f, 237ff). Broadly speaking, communication in this sense consists of the use of words, but also other kinds of symbols (including gestures, facial expressions, images, emoticons, etc.) in the interaction between multiple social actors (Luhmann [1987] 2002; Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson 1967). This is coextensive with the concept of symbolic interaction, but brackets the actors’ subjective meaning.

The notion of stitching now requires that a communicative event references multiple social contexts, and that it is observed and affects follow-up communication in them. In addition to “stitching communication,” different social realms are also connected through actors, as Bourdieu and Thornton et al. argue. For example, a professor might decline an invitation to a conference because she or he wants to spend time with her or his children. This kind of cognitive weighing of demands and dispositions from different fields makes for an indirect connect between them. But it does not constitute “stitching” as discussed below.

What constitutes a “social context” or “social and cultural structure”? Depending on our theoretical inclinations, we can think of them as systems, fields, ideal typical patterns of meaning, groups, institutions, or networks. The only requirement is that social and cultural structures are inscribed and instantiated in social events, to form, to reproduce, or to change over their course. In this vein, Abbott (2001) views “social structures as the encoded memory of past process” (p. 259). The theoretical approaches discussed above consider them as patterns of meaning that develop out of previous social process and structure future social process. These patterns have to be relatively stable, persisting as recognizable structures that are relatively similarly invoked across different sequences of events. I offer a provisional list of these kinds of social and cultural structures in the next section.

Following Weber, Parsons, and Luhmann, I regard social and cultural structures as patterns of expectations (Parsons et al. [1951] 1959:19ff). These expectations are inscribed in the processing of communicative events (as provisional “definitions of the situation” that subsequent events build on, or contest; Luhmann [1984] 1995:96ff). In this vein, the roles of Casillas and Carbonero as lovers on one hand and as sports star and reporter on the other hand belong to two distinct patterns of expectations: their intimate relationship and the sports entertainment complex. Both social structures derive from distinct sequences of communication allocating these expectations to the two actors. To the extent that such patterns of expectations remain separate, and understood to be distinct, we can term them different social-cultural contexts, despite their frequent entanglement.

From Switching to Stitching

In this section I introduce the concept of “stitching” for the processing of multiple social contexts in communication. I take the concept from a casual remark by network theorist Harrison White. In the late 1990s, White introduced the concept of switching as key to the development and formation of networks and other social structures (Godart and White 2010; Mische and White 1998; White 1995). Switchings constitute a rapid change in the social and cultural context invoked in communication: in network (social) and domain (cultural). White (1995) wrote, “Interactions switch from one evolved domain of aptness to another—contingently with ecological and/or sociocultural incidents in situations—and thus, also from one set of ties, one evolved network, to another” (p. 1038). According to White, networks are always interwoven with domains of meaning (in “netdoms”). Therefore, any change of meaning in communication also makes for a change in network context. Such switchings bring “fresh meaning” by combining different sociocultural contexts: “Switchings need not be completely random but often include randomness. Meanings are generated through switching among netdoms triggered by events” (Godart and White 2010:571).

These and other passages sketch switchings as events that are both ubiquitous and key for the social world. Switchings come about by coincidence, they bring about fresh meanings by connecting different sociocultural contexts, and they make for the change necessary to overcome the fragmentation of the social into stale isolated units. However, the empirical examples offered by White and his coauthors do not quite clarify the empirical reference: what communicative processes qualify as “switchings,” and why? Also, how exactly do such switching processes result in change in the structures at play? ² Think of two colleagues over lunch, talking about work. One kind of switching would result from their changing the subject from work to football. Another kind of switching would have a third colleague joining the two, potentially leading to a shift in the content of communication, if only minute. How would either of the two kinds of switchings make for a change in the different sociocultural contexts involved?

In another paper, White sympathizes with Luhmann’s notion of “communication” but ultimately rules that “switchings” are more fundamental (White et al. 2007). His remark about “stitching” comes from the discussion of “switchings” and “communication” in an interview. In March 2011, I asked White, “Would you say that switchings constitute a special instance of communication [in the sense of Luhmann]?” After pondering the question for about six seconds, he answered,

No, I would say communication more likely constitutes a special kind of switching. . . . Switching is a more universal concept. Indeed, I’ve been playing with the idea: Instead of switching I could use “stitching.” The main thing to get clear is that there is a rapid, unexpected, unprojected, uncontrolled change. And it’s a change in both perspective, of who’s seeing what, and context, and what’s involved. And so, switching has got to be at the very heart of everything (Schmitt and Fuhse 2015, 182).

White argues that “switching” is a wider concept that includes Luhmann’s “communication” and that it brings an “unexpected” and “uncontrolled” change in “perspective” and personnel (“who’s seeing what”). Otherwise, this answer does not settle the relation between switching and communication. Most empirical communication seems to remain within one network of social relationships and one domain of cultural forms, rather than rapidly switching between them. So how can communication be a “special kind of switching”?

White also brings up “stitching” as a new concept without further elaboration. As I understand it, the idea of stitching does not include a rapid change from one context to another, like switching. Rather, multiple contexts are “stitched together” in communication, like pieces of fabric. Communication does not have to switch from one context to another. Instead, it processes multiple sociocultural contexts simultaneously. In a similar sense, Abbott (2016) formulated, “Any event is in many social ‘things’ at once” (p. 24). ³

What exactly does communicative stitching entail? Returning to the two colleagues discussing their work over lunch, a number of social contexts (or “things” in the sense of Abbott) might play a role at the same time:

• - Their talk forms a face-to-face encounter in the sense of Goffman, following the rules of turn-taking and face-saving behavior.

• - At the same time, they are part of a formal organization: their company. Maybe they discuss the impact of past decisions and prepare future decisions.

• - One of the key references would be the social field (or functional subsystem) of the economy, composed of payments in terms of costs and benefits in orders and wages. It might also be the mass media (for journalists), science (for scientists or academics), education (for teachers), law (for judges, attorneys, or lawyers), or politics (for politicians or state officials). Frequently, more than one of these realms is involved: science and education in a university, law and the economy in a law firm (or with contract issues in a company), politics and the mass media in a news agency.

• - In addition to these three kinds of contexts (encounters, formal organization, the economic subsystem), the identities of the actors involved are relevant in communication (over and above their formal organizational roles and their faces in the encounter), and they might change as a result of it.

• - The same holds for the social relationship between them, and for those to others: for networks of social relationships.

• - Culture and institutions also play a role. For example, cultural conceptions of seniority and subordinance will affect communication between the two colleagues. These conceptions do not change as a result of this one encounter but might do so if communication regularly deviates from institutionalized expectations. For example, the expectation of competence by seniority will be undermined if young underlings recurrently gain status on the basis of fresh expertise, say in working with computers.

• - Similarly, social categories such as gender or ethnicity can have an immediate impact on communication, but change only over long time spans.

In stitching, all of these different social and cultural structures can be involved in communicative processes. Multiple structures leave their imprint on the same communicative events. This sometimes makes for quite complicated, even awkward, communication, as in the interview between Carbonero and Casillas. Communication is simpler and more straightforward with different audiences kept separate (colleagues, girlfriend, TV audience; Goffman [1959] 1990:137ff).

Once we look for it, such multiple referencing and processing of social contexts becomes so pervasive that White may be correct: communication in the sense of Luhmann is a special kind of social event. Quite rarely, if ever, are social events produced by and relevant only in one social context, as Luhmann seems to assume. Most communication is coproduced by, or references, multiple contexts. As a result, these cannot really be regarded as self-referential in their operations, because any communicative event would be the operation of multiple contexts at once, picking up on what was said and done in them at the same time.

Figure 1 gives an exemplary schema of how two kinds of social contexts, politics and journalism, are stitched together in communication. At first, the sequences of communicative events in both contexts are separate, for instance in party meetings and editorial conferences. Then both come together, for instance in a newspaper interview with a politician. Such interviews have their own dynamics of conversation, with journalistic and political logics intertwining and haggling with each other. In these events, the political and the journalistic realm are stitched together. Subsequently, both political and journalistic communication pick up on the stitching event, in different ways. The interview has repercussions for both sides. For example, a candidate knowledgeable in his policy area can be found lacking in media appeal. Or the interview brings up a new topic, which comes to dominate the next media cycle. In addition to politics and journalism, other social and cultural structures (identities, personal relationships, formal organizations [political party and media company], social categories [e.g., gender], and culture and institutions) will play roles in these sequences. Including these in the figure would render it much more complex, probably too complex to be helpful.

Figure 1.

Stitching communication between politics and journalism.

In line with Tilly’s (2005) approach, stitching constitutes a social mechanism: a “delimited class of events that change relations among specified sets of elements in identical or closely similar ways over a variety of situations” (p. 28). They are particular events that entail the processing of multiple social and cultural structures. And they make for specific change in these structures, first in the form of irritations, later, if the structures at play come into contact repeatedly, as gradual adaptation and attunement. Building on White’s account, stitching events carry meaningful associations from one context into another, as any event builds on the meaningful associations—definitions of the situation—established in earlier events. Stitching therefore must build on multiple definitions of the situation, sometimes at odds with each other. The events in question combine these meaningful associations, and such combinations are subsequently processed in the various contexts at play. They lead to new expectations, new definitions of the situation that change the sociocultural patterns, if only minutely. New communication now must build on these changed patterns of expectations.

Accordingly, stitching is not only a mechanism of typical chains of events making for a change in social relations, as Tilly holds. It also centrally builds on the processing of meaning, on definitions of the situation combining in events and making for new patterns of meaning, leading to an altered course of events. Mechanisms are typical social processes (Tilly), and they are based on meaning (Gross 2009; Knight and Reed 2019; Norton 2014). The event sequences in question need not be modeled in the form of rational action by individuals (Hedström and Swedberg 1998). The only requirement is that events process meaning.

To summarize, the proposed concept of stitching entails the following:

1. Communicative events pick up on communication from different social contexts.

2. For this, they must build on the expectations (definitions of the situation) in these contexts. Stitching events combine multiple traces of meaning.

3. These events lead to follow-up communication in the social contexts at play.

4. Meaning from one context thereby becomes relevant and incorporated in another context.

Depending on how exactly stitching plays out, different results are possible. If the expectations from the different contexts allow this, communication tends to conform to them. In these instances, stitching simply reproduces these contexts and contributes to their persistence and stability. The entanglement in multiple contexts may also violate expectations in at least one of them. For instance, the friendship between our colleagues over lunch may conflict with their roles as employees, if one of them expresses her frustration with the job, or confesses defying company orders. Social contexts here must deal with the impact of other structures on the same communication, and adapt in consequence. The consequences of these irritations can be minor, or they can be quite extreme in the contexts involved. If one of the colleagues reported her friend’s deviations to superiors at the company, that friend’s contract and the friendship might terminate. Irritations can occur once, like a viral pandemic or an economic crisis, and still cause tremendous ripples, as in the “event effects” considered by Lingard and Rawolle. Or they can take place repeatedly, leading to the contexts to develop expectations about the irritations between them. For instance, politics and journalism are now quite accustomed to “political communication” taking place in both of them. I elaborate on such “stitching patterns” in the penultimate section.

Stitching across Kinds of Structures

What does stitching look like empirically? In the introduction, I offered the episode of the Spanish goalkeeper being interviewed by his girlfriend. At first glance, this constitutes a fine example of “switching,” with the kiss marking the transition from professional interview to intimate relationship (between the same two actors). The concept of stitching changes our perspective. Casillas and Carbonero did not switch from one network domain (sports entertainment) to another (intimate relationship). Rather, the kiss took place in the interview, just as the reporter-athlete sequence forms part of the history of their relationship.

The somewhat surprising turn of events may not affect Casillas’s sportsmanship much (though there was speculation about Carbonero’s distracting influence in an earlier game; Ashdown 2010). Also, Carbonero’s identity as a professional sports reporter might have suffered from the episode. In any case, the episode contributed to the status of Carbonero and Casillas as a celebrity couple in the world of sports entertainment, and it added to the prominence of both. We can also suspect a big influence of these kinds of episodes on the love relation between Carbonero and Casillas. The kiss after winning of the world championship might cause fewer problems there than critical interviews after less successful sports performances. If stitching brings “fresh meaning” into social contexts, it comes in the form of such irritations from one context to another.

Overall, the episode features at least five different kinds of social and cultural structures:

• - sports entertainment in the mass media;

• - the intimate relationship between Carbonero and Casillas, as well as Casillas’s personal relationships to the other people he thanked (his family and friends);

• - the organization of the Spanish broadcasting station (Telecinco) with the role of Carbonero as professional sports reporter;

• - the individual identities of Carbonero and Casillas (spanning these various contexts; see the next section);

• - and cultural norms concerning intimate behavior in public and propriety in professional contexts.

The concept of stitching directs attention to such different kinds of social and cultural structures involved in communication. But it also makes us look for the repercussions of instances of stitching in these contexts, particularly if such stitching occurs repeatedly and systematically.

I now consider a more consequential instance of stitching: in the Greek bailout crisis of 2010 to 2018, the Greek state repeatedly faced imminent insolvency with public debt amounting to 160 percent to 180 percent of its gross domestic product. A “troika” of international partners (the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission, and the European Central Bank) helped Greece, as a member of the “Eurozone” with the joint currency, remain solvent, demanding strict reforms and austerity in exchange. On June 27, 2015, the recently elected left-wing prime minister Alexis Tsipras announced breaking off negotiations with the “troika” and a referendum on the acceptance or rejection of the terms offered for a renewal of the bailout program (Tsatsanis and Teperoglou 2016). In a televised “national address,” Tsipras declared,

After five months of hard negotiations our partners, unfortunately, ended up making a proposal that was an ultimatum towards Greek democracy and the Greek people. . . . My fellow Greeks, we are now burdened with the historic responsibility, (in homage) to the struggles of the Hellenic people, to enshrine democracy and our national sovereignty. (Smith 2015) ⁴

This communicative event should be interpreted as an instance of “stitching” various social contexts, with important repercussions for all of them:

• - The immediate context of the announcement was the multilateral relations of Greece within the European Union (with the commission and the fellow member states) and with the International Monetary Funds. Although not formally involved in the troika negotiations, it was understood that no bailout deal could hold without the support of the powerful Eurozone governments of Germany and France.

• - The Syriza-led government had failed to substantially renegotiate the conditions of the bailout program and tried to force the international partners to offer better terms by enlisting the Greek electorate for support. Neither the Greek government nor most of the voters wanted to actually break these relations and leave the common currency.

• - Another primary context lay in the arena of Greek politics. Tsipras and his party Syriza had won the January 2015 election promising to substantially improve the conditions of the bailout. The drastic austerity measures tied to the bailout infringed on the sovereignty of the Greek people and limited the economic activity necessary to meet the fiscal goals, they reasoned. This line of argument was widely supported, and the referendum on July 5 brought a majority of 61.5 percent against the terms offered by the troika.

• - The political identities of Tsipras and Syriza benefited from the announcement. They upheld or increased their popularity.

• - The internal organizational hierarchy of the Syriza party, with Tsipras as its undisputed head, and its coalition government of Syriza and the right-wing Greek Independents also played a role. Tsipras effectively spoke for party, government, and coalition. After the government failed to garner major concessions from the international partners, a number of Syriza parliamentarians split to form a new party. This organizational failure triggered another election in September.

• - The address itself took place in the mass media, on the Greek main public broadcasting station ERT 1. Other media around the world picked up on the news, according to their criteria of relevance (the “news values”). This consolidated the conflict between Greece and the “troika” as one of the key topics of the news cycle in 2015.

These five areas were directly involved in Tsipras’s TV address, they were part of the traces of meaning combined in this event. Although explicitly placed in the realms of mass media and Greek domestic politics, it was also an act of defiance in the multilateral bailout negotiations (which contributed to its political appeal). Tsipras directly refers to “our partners” in his statement and accuses them of issuing an “ultimatum” to “the Greek people.” Indirectly, the announcement affected the domestic politics in other EU member states (with governing parties under pressure from populist challengers criticizing the financial support for Greece) and economic and financial markets with their assessment of Greek state bonds. In my understanding, these further arenas were not directly involved in the event but observed it from the outside.

“Only” the five contexts listed above were stitched together in Tsipras’s announcement on June 27. It has to be understood from its multiple entanglements in international relations, domestic politics with political identities, party organizations, and the coalition government of Syriza and Independent Greeks, as well as the mass media. Methodologically, a study of switching has to identify these contexts as inscribed in the communicative events in question, be it in the form of explicit references (“our partners”) or in the immediate context of communication (the TV broadcast). By stitching these various contexts together, the announcement also stirred turbulence in them, with domestic politics spilling over into international relations (and financial markets) and vice versa.

In this complex architecture, the various contexts were stitched together in a way that did not allow the Greek government and electorate to reclaim its sovereignty, as Tsipras declared (without violating prior contractual agreements and leaving the Eurozone). The troika partners were unimpressed by the referendum result and declined to offer better terms. Tsipras and Syriza reluctantly had to accept the offer given less than three weeks later (on July 13). However, the electorate deemed their efforts valiant and brought a fresh majority for the coalition of Syriza and Greek Independents in the elections in September 2015.

All of this is well known to informed political observers. But it runs counter to approaches like Luhmann’s systems theory or Bourdieu’s field theory that consider social processes as only part of one social sphere, probably Greek politics here. The concept of “cross-field effects” of Lingard and Rawolle is on point but remains unclear about the mechanisms at play. The notion of stitching allows sociological theory to come to terms with the complicated processes and entanglements between systems or fields. As a “sensitizing concept” (Blumer 1954), it leads us to investigate the multiple contexts involved in communicative episodes and their complex interrelations.

We will probably never find communication imprinted by only one context, especially if we include the identities of the actors involved, cultural patterns (including social categories like nationality, age, and gender), and face-to-face encounters in our list. The concept does not serve to isolate “stitching” communication from nonstitching communication, but to identify the contexts stitched in an episode and to reconstruct its repercussions for them. It can help with the close-up interpretation of communicative sequences, as in conversation analysis. The interview between Carbonero and Casillas would be a candidate for this kind of analysis. But it can also illuminate the unfolding of macro-events such as the Greek bailout crisis.

Stitching Patterns

Up to now, I have considered stitching mainly as a communicative process with repercussions across contexts, in the sense of cascading “event effects” (Lingard and Rawolle 2004:368). This should lead to dynamics and change in the fields (or systems) involved. In this section, I argue that stitching leads to new structures forming between them, especially if social contexts repeatedly coprocess in communication. According to the general framework, communication leads to structures of expectations, and these guide future communication. Stitching is communication, so we should expect specific expectations to result from it, especially if stitching takes place repeatedly. In turn, these expectations should structure future stitching communication, and render it relatively predictable. In the following, I sketch four ways in which stitching makes for specific social and cultural structures:

1. Luhmann introduces the notion of “structural coupling” for structures at the intersections of different social contexts (see “Systems and Structural Coupling”). This designates social phenomena that develop where social contexts frequently have to deal with one another, such as the linkage of politics and the mass media in the construction of “public opinion” or “contracts” connecting law and economy. In Luhmann’s theory, structural couplings form between systems that are self-referentially closed and autopoietic in their operations (Luhmann [1997] 2013:108ff). These couplings are structures of expectations deriving from the observation of frequent irritations from the other system. The details of this observation remain vague: how can one system’s behavior become an irritation in another system?

The concept of stitching offers an answer to this question, leading to slightly modifying the theory. Systems (or fields) observe each other’s irritations, but these occur in the communication processed by both, rather than one system observing a distant second system operating. Structural couplings, then, are patterns of expectations concerning the way stitching typically and predictably proceeds. They are likely to develop where communication is frequently subject to influences from two different realms, as in the mutual observation of politics and journalism (Edelman 1988; Luhmann [1996] 2000:67ff). The stitching framework directs attention to this kind of simultaneous processing in communication, and to its conditioning by structures of expectations coupling two (or more) contexts. Therefore, structural couplings are located in both systems at once, as structures of expectations concerning their coreferencing in communication.

• 2. According to neoinstitutionalism, institutions are cultural models that emerge isomorphically out of the uncertainty of actors in a field, and out of their mutual observation (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; see “Fields and Institutions”). The concept of stitching makes organizational fields look less closed. Institutions as generalized patterns of expectations about situations, actors, and behaviors might develop out of the communication in a field. But they can also form in communication processing multiple fields (or systems), as in the following examples:

The concept of stitching focuses attention on institutions spanning a number of different fields, and on their development in communication involving these multiple fields. We can term these kinds of cultural models “interstitutions” to stress their interstitial nature “between” fields rather than “in” them. In a sense, such interstitutions constitute one form of structural coupling, as outlined above.

• 3. The individual actor is an important subject of stitching processes and connects multiple social contexts. The emphasis on individuals is itself a modern institution, emerging from philosophical and political discourse, as well as legal proceedings, economic processes, and a changing social structure (Luhmann [1989] 2022; Meyer and Jepperson 2000; Taylor 1989). Simmel ([1908] 1964:125ff) locates the individual at the intersection of her social circles. Just as this multiple involvement influences the behavior of the individual, it leaves its imprint on social contexts (Breiger 1974). Whether or not somebody has a job matters for role relations and processes in the family, and these processes in turn sometimes interfere at the workplace, for example, when children are sick. This is reflected in the construction of identities with multiple involvements (friend, colleague, business partner, mother, sister). The entangled roles of Carbonero and Casillas in their interview kiss are a case in point. Such constructions make for an attuning of expectations across contexts even without simultaneous processing in communication. But it also coordinates and facilitates communication in situations of coinvolvement: when children, parents, and teachers attend a school anniversary or when colleagues, friends, and family meet in the neighborhood.

Communicative events are routinely attributed to individuals. They can, and must, juggle the expectations from various contexts in their participation in communication. From this individual perspective, stitching is a craft and requires craftmanship. Following Fligstein (2001), we can observe this as an important “social skill.” This skill lies in dealing with multiple fields (or systems) at once, rather than the ability to navigate within one. Also, such skills may not be transferrable from one stitching context to another. A media-savvy politician may prove less versatile when dealing with judicial courts. Individuals at the intersection of multiple contexts learn to deal with them and to “practice stitching” in the way required of them. In this way, Mische (2008) found that Brazilian youth activists acquire communication styles corresponding to their position within and between movement organizations.

• 4. Finally, the work of Mische and White points to publics as an important arena for stitching communication (Mische and Chandler forthcoming). Building on Goffman, publics are forums of communication where actors from different social contexts come together: parties, councils, protest rallies. Such publics involve stitching if the communication in them references the diverse social contexts of participants, and is subsequently taken up in them (and in the media). For instance, if politicians, company managers, and scientists debate in a talk show, their deliberation will pick on the discourse in their separate social contexts. In this vein, Karell and Freedman (2019) find that Afghan radical groups before 2001 adapted their public statements to accommodate the demands of donors, members, and local communities. Although they formulate that the groups’ public communication “stitches together” difference concepts (Karell and Freedman 2019:734), it thereby also connects (“stitches”) the various contexts involved.

Some publics (councils, lobby meetings, etc.) are especially designed to bring different contexts together, and to strengthen their interrelation. The art groups studied by Basov, de Nooy, and Nenko (2021) are a case of a stabilized public between two different fields (art and academia), and were able to identify their different patterns of meaning intersecting in group discourse. On a larger scale, Twitter is a platform specialized in public communication with actors from different fields (politics, entertainment, journalism, academia, etc.) engaging in communication spanning these fields (Murthy 2018). This leads to a “context collapse,” where posters must take the repercussions in different contexts into account (Marwick and boyd 2010). Other publics (e.g., carnival) explicitly bracket contexts, in an effort to minimize stitching. This is also the case for online gaming or for Internet forums such as Reddit, where the anonymity of posters mostly makes for a disconnect from outside expectations. As with carnival, this gives great freedom to the behavior in these online spaces, which too often results in harassment and hate speech.

Given the limited space of this article, I could only sketch these four implications of the stitching concept. They need to be spelled out in detail and studied empirically.

Conclusion

The concept of stitching adds an important element to sociological theory. Communicative events are rarely governed by one social context alone. Rather, they bear the imprint of multiple social and cultural structures, with repercussions for them. This constitutes the “stitching” of these structures in communication. Although I have not offered a complete list of these structures, they include face-to-face encounters, formal organizations, informal social relationships and networks, societal fields (or “functional subsystems”) such as the economy and science, institutions, individual identities, and social categories such as gender and ethnicity. Following Parsons and Luhmann, all of them constitute patterns of social expectations that develop out of sequences of communicative events, and guide future events. But they bring about communicative events in concert, rather than in isolation. “Stitching” consists of the processing of meaning, of definitions the situation hailing from different social contexts, with repercussions for these contexts.

As a consequence, communication has to deal with multiple patterns of expectations simultaneously. This makes for a first conjecture:

• Conjecture 1: Communication becomes complex through the multiple involvement of social and cultural contexts.

The empirical examination of stitching processes would therefore have to focus on the various traces of meaning from different contexts inscribed in communication. This can be done qualitatively, for example, by focusing on communicative forms to navigate conflicting expectations (e.g., ambiguity and qualifications such as “as your friend/colleague”). In addition, empirical research can identify typical vocabularies from different contexts through qualitative interpretation or by way of quantitative text analysis like topic models.

As a result of this complexity, communication becomes unexpected and predictable for any of the contexts involved. This violation of expectations will then cause irritations, and potentially lead to sanctions and/or adaptation. Social contexts thus regularly have to deal with one another. The resulting “cross-field effects” should differ by the events in question and by the history of stitching of the contexts in play. Singular events can remain ignored if they are minor. Major events may cause disruptions out of their unexpected nature, resulting in abrupt change. However, if stitching occurs repeatedly with two (or more) contexts involved, expectations concerning their interplay will develop. These are structures of expectations (“stitching patterns”) that render the stitching of contexts relatively predictable and orderly.

• Conjecture 2: The repeated stitching of two or more contexts in communication leads to expectations concerning their interplay.

Luhmann terms such interstitial patterns “structural couplings” with an increased irritability of the contexts involved, and with an attunement of processes and expectations in them. Social and cultural structures are not neatly separated self-reproducing entities, but connected to each other in communicative episodes and in structures forming between them.

These effects are relatively similar to White’s concept of “switching.” However, White envisions switching as a rapid change in communicative context (in social network and cultural domain). Stitching does not require a temporal shift, but the simultaneous coinvolvement of contexts in communication. This brings “fresh meaning” by virtue of friction and combination. White claims that switchings come about by coincidence, at least in part. In contrast, communicative stitching may come about and proceed quite systematically. In any one context, the irritations from another context may be unpredictable. What is observed as coincidence, individual agency, destiny, or an act of God in one context, may simply follow expectations from another context.

I suggest that stitching constitutes a mechanism. Picking up on Tilly’s formulation, stitching consists of a specific kind of events that recurrently lead to similar consequences. In line with recent suggestions by Gross, Norton, and Knight/Reed, the mechanism builds on the meaning, the definitions of the situation, processed in stitching events and leaving their trace in subsequent events. In line with White, “stitching” is a general process, rather than an exceptional incidence. Once we start looking for it, stitching is everywhere. The concept of stitching sensitizes us to the multiple imprint of social and cultural structures in communication, and to the repercussions for these structures. On the one hand, this can guide empirical research. We can qualitatively investigate communicative sequences with regard to the interplay of multiple social and cultural structures, building on the methods of conversation analysis and sociolinguistics. It might be possible to formalize this by way of coding. Gibson’s (2005) research on the effects of formal organizational roles and informal friendships on turn-taking in manager meetings is a case in point. The stitching concept may also lend itself to quantitative text analyses, e.g., if we interpret topic models as reflecting different institutional orders (DiMaggio, Nag, and Blei 2013). Another option is to trace the interplay of diverse contexts in macro-processes such as the Greek bailout crisis in qualitative case studies. The concept of stitching thus adds not only sociological theories. It also opens up avenues for empirical research that combines attention to the process of communication with the social and cultural structures it references, reproduces, and changes.