Herausforderungen der Digitalisierung für benachteiligte Stadtquartiere

HERAUSFORDERUNGEN DER DIGITALISIERUNG FÜR BENACHTEILIGTE STADTQUARTIERE Herausforderungen der Digitalisierung für benachteiligte Stadtquartiere / Helfen, Thomas (Rights reserved) ( -

From Urban to Communicational Problems?

In den letzten Jahren ermöglichen immer leistungsstärkere Rechnerkapazitäten neue Formen der Messung, Produktion, Speicherung, Aggregation und Verarbeitung von Daten(mengen) sowie Vernetzung vormals isolierter Datenbestände. Die damit verbundenen Hoffnungen, so ‚bessere‘ Wissensbestände zu generieren, beschäftigen auch das Feld der Stadtforschung und -entwicklung. In Deutschland bündeln sich diese Ambitionen in der nationalen Smart City Charta. Doch wie wurde es möglich, dass im Westlichen Diskurs ‚Wissen‘ oder ‚Information‘ eine derart zentrale Rolle für die Zukunftsfähigkeit von Städten zugewiesen werden konnte? Und was lässt uns denken, dass eine Vernetzung von ‚Information‘ oder ‚Wissen‘ zu ‚besseren‘ Städten beitragen kann? Auf Grundlage genealogischer und diskursanalytischer Ansätze zeichnet diese Arbeit nach, wie die praktische Arbeit an Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien und das Aufkommen eines bestimmten, kybernetischen Denkstils Anfang des 20. Jh. die Herausbildung eines digitalen Urbanismus mitformte. Fernab der Frage, ob Städte durch datenintensive Steuerungsmethoden tatsächlich ‚besser‘ geplant werden können, beschäftigt sich die Arbeit mit der Art und Weise, wie Stadt im digitalen Urbanismus problematisiert wird. Dies soll die dominante und wichtige Kritik des digitalen Urbanismus als unternehmerisches Projekt dahingehend erweitern, diesen nicht lediglich als geleitet von (falschen) Interessen zu verstehen, sondern stärkeren Fokus auf die Handlungsträgerschaft der eigentlichen technologischen Infrastrukturen zu legen. Eine reale Konsequenz ist, so eine zentrale Hypothese dieser Arbeit, dass historisch gewachsene städtische Probleme im Diskurs des digitalen Urbanismus zunehmend in Informations-/Kommunikationsprobleme umgedeutet werden. Entsprechend können deren Ursachen in einem Informationsdefizit oder mangelnder Vernetzung verortet werden, sodass datenbasierte Lösungen in Form ‚intelligenter‘ Infrastrukturen erstrebenswert erscheinen. Ein solcher digitaler Urbanismus kann dazu neigen, historisch gewachsene urbane Probleme zu depolitisieren und zentrale Begriffe wie Macht, Politik oder soziale Hierarchien in den Hintergrund rücken zu lassen.Developments in computer capacities have sparked variegated future scenarios, often carrying the narrative that with a new data deluge, long pressing planetary problems can finally be solved. Cities too are increasingly imagined and already prepared as the central site for such transformation. Thus, travelling under the label of ‘Smart Cities’ or ‘Digital Cities’ they are thought of as knowledge entities not only by corporations that seek to develop urban markets to place their products and services. Also, the state, engineering sciences and a ‘new urban science’ imagine such technological transformations of current cities by means of ‘intelligent’ infrastructures as a desirable, even necessary form of urban management in order to tackle future urban challenges. A good city hence, is primarily one whose infrastructure enables the seamless transmission of information, and often interchangeably, of its inhabitants’ knowledge. It seems that most pressing urban problems are first and foremost problems of information, communication, or, data. Tracing the genealogy of a cybernetic thought style emerging in the early 20th century and analyzing the policy discourse of digital urbanism in Germany, this thesis asks how that came about and how current problematizations of urban phenomena are potentially affected by it. Acknowledging that technologies are not only tools that execute our intentional practices of problematization but shape these too, this thesis traces the role material infrastructures of information technologies had throughout these processes. Thus, this thesis’ aim is twofold, for one, it seeks to understand how it became possible to ascribe ‘knowledge’ such a central role to city planning, so that current imaginaries of digital urbanism (like Smart Cities) can appear as a sensible mode to address urban challenges. Secondly, on this basis, it is inquired whether such inclination to ‘solve’ urban problems with information technologies may bring with it a side-effect that reconfigures historically grown urban problems such that they are amenable to the very information technologies and in turn, appear as if they constitute an information problem. One important implication of such tendency can be the depoliticization of potentially confrontational topics, ignoring issues like power, politics or social hierarchies

Vocal Expression of Emotions in Mammals: Mechanisms of Production and Evidence

Emotions play a crucial role in an animal’s life because they facilitate responses to external or internal events of significance for the organism. In social species, one of the main functions of emotional expression is to regulate social interactions. There has recently been a surge of interest in animal emotions in several disciplines, ranging from neuroscience to evolutionary zoology. Because measurements of subjective emotional experiences are not possible in animals, researchers use neurophysiological, behavioural and cognitive indicators. However, good indicators, particularly of positive emotions, are still lacking. Vocalizations are linked to the inner state of the caller. The emotional state of the caller causes changes in the muscular tension and action of its vocal apparatus, which in turn, impacts on vocal parameters of vocalizations. By considering the mode of production of vocalizations, we can understand and predict how vocal parameters should change according to the arousal (intensity) or valence (positive/negative) of emotional states. In this paper, I review the existing literature on vocal correlates of emotions in mammals. Non-human mammals could serve as ideal models to study vocal expression of emotions, because, contrary to human speech, animal vocalizations are assumed to be largely free of control and therefore direct expressions of underlying emotions. Furthermore, a comparative approach between humans and other animals would give us a better understanding of how emotion expression evolved. Additionally, these non-invasive indicators could serve various disciplines that require animal emotions to be clearly identified, including psychopharmacology and animal welfare science