Visuelle Kommunikation und die Ethnomethoden der Ethnographie

Sociology mostly treats visuality either as a research object or as a method. Instead, I suggest that both can be drawn together and discussed symmetrically as instances of visual communication. This enables us to observe different layers of social practices not only in a verbal but also in a visual dimension. How do members of a situation communicate visually using artifacts, apparel, gestures, pointing or displaying? Furthermore, questions of methodology can be raised on an empirical base: ethnography itself can be described as a social practice that??using specific ethno-methods??systematically links situations and communications in order to reconstruct other social practices for sociological reasons. It uses, intensifies and produces traces of the observed practice and transfers them into sociological communication that can draw on visual communication, too.     

Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Wirklichkeit

Zusammenfassung  Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich dem in der Soziologie zu Unrecht kaum wahrgenommenen Beitrag Siegfried Kracauers zu einer Soziologie der Dinge und des Visuellen. An seiner Studie über die Angestellten und seiner Filmtheorie wird aufgezeigt, dass Kracauer mit Hilfe einer konkreten Analyse der Dinge der Wirklichkeit beizukommen versucht, die in seinen Augen durch das abstrakte Denken der Wissenschaften geradezu unkenntlich gemacht wird. In dieser Diagnose — so die Argumentation des vorliegenden Beitrags — erweist sich Kracauers Werk als überraschend aktuell.

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In search of the lost reality. Attention and thing-perception in siegfried kracauer’s works

The article discusses an essay on the Sociology of Things and the Visual by Siegfried Kracauer, which has been met with an unjustly poor feedback from the sociological community. Based on his studies of white-collar workers and his theory of films it argues that Kracauer chooses a specific analysis of things to approach a reality, which — in his view — had been rendered virtually unrecognizable by the abstract reasoning of the scientific world. The article follows the idea that it is this analysis, which makes Kracauers work modern and up-to-date.

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„überhaupt übernehmen die Dinge die Darstellung der Situation.“ (Wihelm Genazino)     

Kritik der Life-Politics — zum Grenzziehungsdiskurs der Humangenetik

Genetic diagnosis and counselling have gone through a process of institutionalization and normalization, but ethical debates about the benefits and dangers of human genetics continue. This article adopts a sociology of science approach and asks how the professional authority of a science like human genetics, which is still a controversial field, is maintained. Using qualitative expert interviews, the article first identifies boundarywork strategies which provide information about specific ways in which claims to scientific competence and validity are succesfully asserted. At a second level, the boundary-drawing discourse of human genetics makes it possible to reach conclusions about the structuring of professional orientations to action. In order to dissociate human genetics from eugenic practices, the individual and the individual’s moral concepts are treated as the decisive point of reference for professional actions. In conclusion, the article criticizes the mistaken belief that this kind of denationalization (Entstaatlichung) and individualization of biopolitics (?life-politics“) is the same thing as a reflexive practice.     

Die symbolische Macht der Individualisierung und der Kampf um die Kritik

In the article we highlight an aspect of the crisis of criticism which we call ??speechlessness of criticism??. The heterogeneous criticism cannot be bundled up to a critical story any more. A common language with explicatory pictures and grammars is missing. Two explanations are offered for the ??speechlessness?? of criticism: the changes of the normative power of justification orders and the individualisation process. Both developments are a symbolic power which can explain the speechlessness of the criticism of capitalism at least partially. After the sketch of the symbolic power of the legitimation order of project and individualisation, starting points for a renaissance of criticism are analysed. Finally we explore the relevance of a reflexive combination of critical sociology and sociology of criticism for the concept of a critical sociology of criticism.     

Grenzen der Geschichte?

The article follows Tony Becher’s suggestion, that scientific disciplines metaphorically spoken may be looked at as different tribes of different habits occupying different territories. The articles reviews then some possibilities to determine a border between the field of historical research and sociology by different methods, different theories, different research objects e. g. past vs. present and so on. The academic field of history is described as a field importing theories, methods and objects from other academic fields, many of them from sociology. The last decades’ processes of innovation and redefinition within the field of historical research diminished cognitive differences between history and sociology so significantly that — this is the main argument of the article — more or less only the borders produced by institutions remained. Nevertheless these kind of borders have major effects all of them responsible for maintaining different disciplinary identities.     

Marxistische Theoriearbeit in der Krise

The economic as well as political and ideological crises and transformations of capitalist social formations have created a crisis for Marxist approaches. This affects their assumption about the necessity, desirability and possibility of social transformation, but also about the actors fighting them out and their activities. Thus, a far reaching reformulation of its fundamental epistemological and theoretical assumptions is necessary. This contribution argues that the crisis of Marxism demands a self-reflective engagement with conditions of Marxist theoretical work. The acknowledgement of the fundamental openness and incompleteness of Marxist social critique as well as its contested production is indispensable to avoid authoritarian forms of politics and to be implicated into the legitimation of domination again. The encompassing character of the crisis tendencies of capitalist social formations and the multiplication of fields of conflict demands to overcome a monistic interpretation of social dynamics. To conceptualise capitalist social formations as relation of relations is an indispensable precondition for the analysis of the connections between different social structures and relations of power and dominance. Furthermore, the ability of capitalist social formations to change, which has been shown by the recent crises and transformations, demands a fundamental dynamisation of the Marxist concept of reproduction. The dynamisation of relative surplus production in knowledge based capitalism moves the adaptability of the subjects and their capacity to work centre stage. Only against this background can the plurality of perspectives for emancipation and social struggles come into view for Marxist theoretical work.     

Anwendungsorientierte Forschung und der Wandel der Wissensordnung zu Geschlecht: Konzeptionelle Annäherungen

First, the article is a speech for theoretical ambitious and applied oriented gender research. However, the transfer between scientific knowledge and praxis-oriented knowledge is an independent step, which might be based on gender trainings and gender expertise. Second, the complex processes of knowledge transfer and communication and its impacts on the scientific order of knowledge in the gender arena forms part of the debate. The paper discusses these issues and challenges for scientific gender knowledge from the perspective of gender studies and the sociology of professions, scientific discourses, and sociology of science.     

Unter der Fahne des Kalifats

Ever since the proclamation of a caliphate by the so-called “Islamic State” in June 2014, the strategic communication of the terrorist organization has become the subject of public and scientific interest. A focal point of discussion lies at the skillful use of social networks by the “Islamic State”. So far, research has focused primarily on quantitative aspects of agenda setting and has neglected the visual character of terror communication and the specific functions of visuals. The article deals with a selection of video messages of the “Islamic State” that address life in the IS-capital of al-Raqqah. Based on a visual frame analysis the article discusses central topics and visual frames and questions their importance for further research on strategic terrorist communication.     

Editorial: Soziologie der Emotionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Gerechtigkeit: Die Wahrheit der Demokratie

It seems reasonable, that Badiou declares, it should be possible to find a fixed point in the universe, from which democracy and social justice could be justified in away to which truth could be attributed. For, the point of departure can only be found in the human life-form. And the human life-form must be understood as a fact. For facts, however, we claim truth. From the truth of the human life-form a second statement of truth can be derived: the constructivity of the social order. This, finally, leads to the postulate of the democratic order of society and its justice. For philosophers it might seem unthinkable to derive a normative postulate from a fact. However, in an epistemological refined thinking in a world that has become secular the procedure is not unavoidable. Furthermore it makes good sense to declare that the human life-form (a fact) demands democracy (a normative postulate).     

Die Projektpolis bei der Arbeit. Open-Source-Software-Entwicklung und der „neue Geist des Kapitalismus“

The paper investigates the implementation of normative aspects in open source development projects. Current social analysis on open source tends to neglect the question how normative dispositions are enacted there in favor of a somewhat functionalist belief in the co-ordination mechanisms of gift economies or hacker ethics. In this paper, the “justificatory regime of projects“ developed by Boltanski and Chiapello is used as a blueprint of the normative order of knowledge-intensive contexts of collaboration. The notion of a “test” provides a micro-macro link in order to investigate the enactment of justifactory regimes in situated action. The paper identifies exemplary tests and critical incidents in two large open source projects, Debian and KDE. The justificatory regime of projects “at work” is found to be more complex and contradictory than the simple mechanisms of gift or knowledge economies would suggest. Their moral economy is not automatically integrated by a comprehensive “hacker ethic” of limitless involvement, technical excellence and fun. Projects, in their conflicts and discussions over norms, handle flexible involvements and the limitations of time and attention, and their normative regimes only work because they are able to manage that.     

Subjektivierung der Biographie. Lebensorientierungen und Anspruchshaltungen

Opposing the tendency within current analyses in the social sciences to draw a conclusion from present changes in people??s working and living conditions to corresponding social-psychic dispositions, this article both theoretically and empirically develops the thesis that people??by considering structural preconditions??put demands on themselves and structure their resources and possible courses of action. In order to understand how this is done, the article develops the concept of ??life-orientation??. By means of four exemplary typifications of life-orientations gained from a research project on employees?? demands on work, we will demonstrate that established beliefs about actual forms of subjectivity are in need of correction.     

Bestimmungsgröβen der vollzugsgerichtlichen Entscheidung über die bedingte Entlassung nach zwei Dritteln der Freiheitsstrafe

The Austrian practice of conditional release from prison is generally seen as restrictive. The reasons for that retention are investigated by means of analyzing 638 parole decisions by captives convicted for sexual offenses, robbery or mayhem. The cautious parole practice is due to a restrictive recommendation policy of the public prosecutors and the personal considerations of the judges. The judges fill their discretion area at first with criteria from the legal career of the inmate and secondary with selected features of the actual conviction. They mainly use information indicating a stable criminal disposition — from an attribution theory point of view. The recommendations of the prison staff are neglected. They don’t influence parole decisions very much.     

Editorial: Die Soziologie der Cultural Studies

Ohne Zusammenfassung Udo G?ttlich PD Dr., M. A., Vertretung einer Professur am Institut für Medien-und Theaterwissenschaft im Fachbereich II — Kulturwissenschaften und ?sthetische Kommunikation — der Universit?t Hildesheim im WS 2007/08. Leiter der Forschungsgruppe „Politik und Kommunikation“ am Rhein-Ruhr-Institut für Sozialforschung und Politikberatung der Universit?t Duisburg-Essen. Arbeits-und Forschungsschwerpunkte: Allgemeine Soziologie, Medien-, Kommunikations-und Kultursoziologie, Cultural Studies Approach, Theorie und Analytik der Medien-und der Popul?rkultur. Aktuelle Publikation: Die Kreativit?t des Handelns in der Medienaneignung, Konstanz 2006.