It’s the Camera! A Special One: The Smartboxing of Image Processing Algorithms and their Uncertainties in Media Representations of Surveillance Technology
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Published:
Apr 1, 2018
Keywords:
Smartboxing, smart technology, surveillance technology, image processing algorithms, uncertainty, technology communication
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Abstract
This paper presents an analysis of media articles and publicly available documents on one of Austria’s first nationwide surveillance systems in operation that makes use of image processing, pattern recognition technology: the “Automatic Toll Sticker Checks” on Austrian motorways. A recurring narrative makes the camera, not the silent image processing algorithms (IPAs), the centre of attention. IPAs and their inevitable uncertainties are completely disregarded and “smartboxed” in favour of the special camera that appears as magic technology. As such, the ready-made smart box is not contested at all. Instead, its economic success and standing as a moral agent is emphasised.
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References
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Suchman, Lucy. 2007. Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Plans and Situated Actions. 2nd Edition. London: Cambridge University Press.
Suchman, Lucy, Randall Trigg, and Jeanette Blomberg. 2002. Working Artefacts: Ethnomethods of the Prototype. British Journal of Sociology 53 (2): 163-179.
Surette, Ray. 2005. The Thinking Eye. Pros and Cons of Second Generation CCTV Surveillance Systems. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 28/1: 152-173.
ASFINAG. n.d. About us. https://www.asfinag.at/about-us
Ball, Kirstie, Kevin Haggerty and David Lyon, ed. 2012. Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies. London: Routledge.
Bensaude Vincent, Bernadette. 2014. The Politics of Buzzwords at the Interface of Technoscience, Market and Society: The Case of Public Engagement in Science. Public Understanding of Science 23(3): 238-253.
Callon, Michel. 1986. Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In Power, Action, and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?, edited by John Law, 196-233. London: Routledge.
Cole, Simon. 2015. A Surfeit of Science: The “CSI effect” and the Media Appropriation of the Public Understanding of Science. Public Understanding of Science 24(2): 130-146.
Collins, Harry, and Robert Evans. 2008. You Cannot Be Serious! Public Understanding of Technology with Special Reference to “Hawk-Eye.” Public Understanding of Science 17: 283-308.
Collins, Harry, and Robert Evans. 2012. Sport-Decision Aids and the ''CSI-Effect'': Why Cricket Uses Hawk-Eye Well and Tennis Uses It Badly. Public Understanding of Science 21: 904-921.
Daston, Lorraine, and Peter Gallison. 2007. Objektivität. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Ferenbok, Jospeh, and Andrew Clement. 2011. Hidden Changes: From CCTV to ‘Smart’ Video Surveillance. In Eyes Everywhere. The Global Growth of Camera Surveillance, edited by Aaron Doyle, Randy Lippert, and David Lyon, 218- 233. London: Routledge.
Fox, Renee C., and Judith P. Swazey. 1992. Spare Parts. Oxford University Press.
Gates, Kelly. 2010. The Tampa “Smart CCTV” Experiment. Culture Unbound 2: 67–89.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, edited by Clifford Geertz, 3-30. New York: Basic Books.
Gobo, Giampetro. 2008. Doing Ethnography. London: Sage.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.
Hargreaves, Ian, Justin Lewis, and Tammy Speers. 2003. Towards a Better Map: Science, the Public and the Media. Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council.
Hilgartner, Stephen. 1990. The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses. Social Studies of Science 20(3): 519-539.
Introna, Lucas D., and David Murakami Wood. 2004. Picturing Algorithmic Surveillance: The Politics of Facial Recognition Systems. Surveillance & Society 2 (2/3): 177–198.
Irwin, Alan, and Brian Wynne. 1996. Misunderstanding Science? The Public Reconstruction of Science and Technology. London: Cambridge University Press.
Kammerer, Dietmar. 2008. Bilder der Überwachung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Kruse, Corinna. 2010. Producing Absolute Truth: CSI Science as Wishful Thinking. American Anthropologist 112 (1): 79–91.
Latour, Bruno. 1999. Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 2000. The Berlin Key or How to Do Words with Things. In Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture, edited by Paul Graves-Brown, 10-21. London & New York: Routledge.
Law, John. 2008. On Sociology and STS. The Sociological Review 56 (4): 623-649.
Lyon, David 2001. Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life. Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Möllers, Norma, and Jens Hälterlein. 2012. Privacy Issues in Public Discourse. The Case of ‘Smart’ CCTV in Germany. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 26: 57-70.
Monahan, Torin. 2010. Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Musik, Christoph. 2011. The Thinking Eye Is Only Half the Story: High-Level Semantic Video Surveillance. Information Polity 16 (4): 339-353.
Nelkin, Dorothy. 1995. Selling Science: How the Press Covers Science and Technology. W.H. Freeman.
Norris, Clive, and Gary Armstrong. 1999. The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise Of CCTV. Oxford, UK: Berg.
Nowotny, Helga, Peter Scott, and Michael Gibbons. 2001. Re-thinking Science. Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Oudshoorn, Nelly. 2003. The Male Pill. A Biography of a Technology in the Making. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Pinch, Trevor. 1993. Testing - One, Two, Three... Testing!": Toward a Sociology of Testing. Science, Technology, & Human Values 18(1): 25-41.
Pollock, Neil, and Robin Williams. 2010. The Business of Expectations: How Promissory Organizations Shape Technology and Innovation. Social Studies of Science 40(4): 525-548.
Rappert, Brian. 2015. Sensing Absence: How to See What Isn't There in the Study of Science and Security. In Absence in Science, Security and Policy: From Research Agendas to Global Strategy, edited by Brian Rappert and Brian Balmer, 3-33. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Retzbach, Andrea and Michaela Maier. 2015. Communicating Scientific Uncertainty: Media Effects on Public Engagement with Science. Communication Research 42(3): 429–456.
Silverstone, Roger, and Eric Hirsch, eds. 1992. Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. New York: Routledge.
Strauss, Anselm L., and Juliet Corbin. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research. Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Suchman, Lucy. 2007. Human-Machine Reconfigurations. Plans and Situated Actions. 2nd Edition. London: Cambridge University Press.
Suchman, Lucy, Randall Trigg, and Jeanette Blomberg. 2002. Working Artefacts: Ethnomethods of the Prototype. British Journal of Sociology 53 (2): 163-179.
Surette, Ray. 2005. The Thinking Eye. Pros and Cons of Second Generation CCTV Surveillance Systems. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 28/1: 152-173.