Cultural Techniques and Logistical Media: Tuning German and Anglo-American Media Studies

Abstract

In order to study the world you have to stop it." Hiroshi Sugimoto (photographer) Media theory describes transmission and storage as two basic media functions that are fundamentally opposed and quite different in quality. There must, however, be a way to think about how they are linked. Can transmission and storage be functionally related? Are there concepts that bridge the difference? A first proposal to address the above questions was made by Harold Innis, who defined the media as overcoming space and time. Not surprisingly, overcoming space corresponds to the notion of transmission. Innis continues by asking about the contribution the media make in forming tradition. In other words, from a technological perspective Innis explores the storage function, which he defines as Transmission along the Time Axis, thus rendering transmission the predominant factor-both transmission and storage appear to be types of transmission. However, does this prove to be a satisfactory answer to our questions? The following is an attempt to tackle the problem from a different approach.

“The Computer Said So”: On the Ethics, Effectiveness, and Cultural Techniques of Predictive Policing

“…Winthrop-Young exemplifies this statement by noting that people draw pictures before the concept of an image was conceived and played music before the concept of tonality existed. Concepts do not have ontological priority, rather they emerge from practice (Winthrop-Young, 2015, p.459).…”

“…Drawing distinctions is not only a question of how tecniques or technologies are being used by people. As Liam Cole Young (2015) notes, “[t]he study of cultural techniques holds that media and things are not simply passive objects to be activated at the whim of an intentional (human) subject. Media and things supply their own rules of execution.” He is here referring to Siegert’s famous example of the door as a cultural technique.…”

“…Young (2015) references the school shootings of Marysville-Pilchuck High School in 2014 and notes that information that the shooter might harm himself and others circulated on social media, a month prior to the events. For him, early detection and immediate treatment of the person-in-risk might have prevented the situation.…”

“…For him, early detection and immediate treatment of the person-in-risk might have prevented the situation. Young (2015) notes,As predictive technology becomes more available and reliable, it could be used to provide immediate treatment (through a collaboration between law enforcement and mental health professionals) for a person-at-risk to prevent deaths, as well as provide services and information to those in danger.…”

“…Using The New York Times debate as an inspiration, I examine the intertwining of the ethics and effectiveness of predictive policing through a framework German media theory has called kulturtechniken . 1 Kulturtechniken , or cultural techniques, as the concept is now being translated, offers a way to understand how “media and things” provide “their own rules of execution” and “structure our possibilities in praxis” (L. C. Young, 2015).…”