A.V. Polyakov’s Communicative Theory of Law in the Conditions of the Medial Turn: Structural Points of Growth

This article concerns the points of growth of A.V. Polyakov's communicative theory of law in the conditions of a medial turn. The main purpose of the A.V. Polyakov theory was to integrate various types of legal understanding, reconciling the confrontation of natural law, positivism, and sociological theories of law. The semantic core of this theory is the concept of legal communication as an interaction between legal subjects who are aware of each other's rights and recognize them. The medial turn associated with total digitalization is becoming a new challenge for the communicative theory of law. The author analyzes its nodal moments, in which it is possible to expand the heuristic potential of the theory. The starting point of the analysis is the structure of communication, the treatment of which allows one to concretize, expand, and supplement the initial provisions of the theory of A.V. Polyakov. In the part of the theory related to the consideration of communicants, A.V. Polyakov introduces the intersubjective figure of the Other, thanks to which legal communication is focused on the counterparty. However, a different figurativeness of the Other is possible here, based on the typification of polysubject communication and the combinatorics of classical forms of communication in intermediate models. The examination of the communication channel reveals the possibility of calibrating A.V. Polyakov's chosen broad understanding of the text as any set of signs included in semiosis through a narrow understanding of the text as a form of communication based on M. McLuhan's idea of communication revolutions. In this case, the prospects for research on the role of media text in the legal communication of digital society open up. The message is the material basis for transporting the meaning of legal communication. It is possible to expand the theory by analyzing the processes of interference of meaning within a single message based on the methodology of N. Luhmann's autopoiesis. The effects of legal communication can be considered more panoramically when detailing the system of communication blocks of various natures, which is conceptualized on the basis of R. Dahrendorf's theory of social conflict. Structural analysis of communication is both a strategy for detailing its features and a methodological technique for expanding theory through new projects of methodological syntheses with social theories.