The theme of this report is communication and
system development. The historical development
of theories of communications and organizations
has a significant impact; on how the views of
these aspects, influence the context of a
system development process. The developer
constructing the information system and the
agent using the system, bring with them
different perspectives, in their mutual
interaction. These different perspectives are
identified as pre-understanding (forforståelse
in Danish). The aim of the report is to
identify the pre-understanding in the context
of system development. To obtain that quest,
different communication models is presented and
discussed.The context in a system development
process is social interaction, organizations
and the society. This very wide definition of
the context is necessary, because the focus
area of a system development process (the
organization), is influenced by the social
interaction and the society in general. The
communication model developed by the Danish
professor of multimedia Lars Qvortrup is
selected, because it takes this wider context
in consideration in its description, of the
communication process. His model has its basis
in the theories of social systems, developed by
the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. After a
discussion of the communication model by
Qvortrup, the pre-understanding is deducted and
identified, as the personal and institutional
criteria’s of selection. The criteria’s of
selections has its point of origin in the
social systems, as described by Niklas Luhmann
(The social systems, is the systems of
interaction, the organizations and the
society). The pre-understanding in relation to
and organization is identified as the relation
between the articulated and unarticulated
levels (the discursive, the value and the
fundamental levels) of an organization; as
described in the model of the organizational
culture and identity, developed by the Danish
senior lecturer Mie Femø Nielsen. The pre-
understanding deduced in the report, is
compared with the pre-understanding deducted
from the system development method
organizational semiotics, in order to discus
their similarities and differences.