Über Gesellschaft lässt sich viel lernen, wenn man die Arbeit an ihrer Korrektur untersucht. Globalisierung und Digitalisierung scheinen Korrektiven abseits des Staatlichen eine Sonderposition einzuräumen: Ungekannt schnell und grenzenlos können sie operieren. Marc Mölders zeigt, dass zentrale Gesellschaftsprobleme Übersetzungskonflikte sind und dies nicht nur differenzierungstheoretisch angenommen wird. Anhand des Investigativ-Journalismus - einer Form organisierter Gesellschaftskorrektur - zeichnet er nach, wie eine durch Tempo-Dosierung und Grenzeinhaltung gekennzeichnete Irritationsgestaltung aus Publikationen »Druckerzeugnisse« macht.
Algorithms have entered courts, e.g. via scores assessing recidivism. At first sight, recent applications appear to be clear cases of solutionism, i.e. attempts at fixing social problems with technological solutions. Deploying thematic analysis on assessments of two of the most prominent and widespread examples of recidivism scores, COMPAS and the PSA, casts doubt on this notion. Crucial problems -as different as "fairness" (COMPAS) and "proper application" (PSA) -are not tackled in a technological manner but rather by installing conversations. It shows that even technorationalists never see the technological solution in isolation but are actively searching for flanking social methods thereby accounting for problems that cannot be eased technologically. Furthermore, we witness social scientists called upon as active parts of such engineering.
The contribution at hand puts forward the notion of "irritation expertise": knowing how to push others into a direction not chosen voluntarily. This kind of knowledge, I will argue, is of particular importance when players in policy contexts try to influence each other by providing futureoriented knowledge that is inherently uncertain. Yet, it is striking that comparatively little attention has been drawn to the question how to reach specific addressees; this is what media studies and conversation analysis call "recipient design". Presenting the example of ProPublica, a US investigative journalism newsroom, illustrates what irritation expertise as instrument for policy development and strategic reasoning means. ProPublica deals with very different formats-from research reports to comic strips-depending on whose behavior it intends to change-from decision-makers to the (general) public. Discussing what Futures Research may learn from this practice concludes this contribution.
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