Perhaps the most important difference as against older theories of power is that the theory of communication media conceptualizes the phenomenon of power on the basis of a difference between the code and the communication process and is therefore not in a position to attribute power to one of the partners as a property or as a faculty. Power 'is' code-guided communication. Attribution of power to the power-holder is regulated in this code with wide-ranging results concerning the reinforcement of motivations to comply, responsibility, institutionalization, giving specific direction to wishes for change, etc. Although both sides are acting, whatever happens is attributed solely to the power-holder.

XREF: Relates to system-theoretical accounts of power (e.g., Niklas Luhmann, Michel Foucault's relational power) that treat power as a communicative/structural phenomenon rather than a possession.

Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, loc. 609