Psychological engineering and Radiophony

Constructions of Subjectivity in Artificial Realities 1918-1932

Wilhelm Fink Verlag 2001
35,80 EU ISBN 3-7705-3624-X

Abstract

The establishment of Psychotechnik (psycho-technique), which is the contemporary German name for psychological engineering, is associated with the well known programmes of rationalization that circulated in 1920s Germany. Its aptitude tests produce information about the psychic qualities and qualifications of individuals, relating this data to its average distribution within populations as well as to functional demands (e.g. of the workplace).

With the advent of radio in the same period, a novel facet of social reality emerges, consisting of the simultaneous experierence of a public dispersed in space - a reality that is at the same time manipulable with technological and dramaturgic means.

It is not just concepts of subjectivity that psycho-technique and the use of radio deal with, but constructions of subjectivity in the litteral sense: constructions that cannot be obtained without the apropriate artifacts.

In this book, psycho-technique and radiophony are analysed a procedures that undermine the borders between the inner and the outer wourld and establish novel modes of subjectivation that are at the same time instrumental and regulative. Thus, the outlines of a socio-technological modernity become visible, and a contribution to the genealogy of our present is given.

See the first part of the introduction (in German, sorry) on the homepage of MoMo a philosophical circle in Berlin.

Table of content:

INTRODUCTION	7
1. Problem and method	7
2. Subject, discipline and normalisation - previous studies	17
a. The formation of autonomous subjectivity	17
b. The production of the individual - interests and discipline	20
c. The epistemic figure "Man"	24
d. The intermediate sphere of regulation: normalisation	26
e. Structure of the argument	34
I. PSYCHOTECHNICAL NORMALISATION	39
1. Psyche as an object of the human sciences	39
a. The difference to philosophy	39
b. The difference to physiology	41
c. "Psychophysik" (Fechner)	44
d. The psychology of consciousness	46
e. Summary	51
2. Psyche as an intermediate sphere	53
a. Psychological facts beyond consciousness	54
b. Mass psyche as a political actor	58
c. Neurasthenia as a "historic psychosis"	62
d. Summary	65
3. The formation of applied psychology	69
a. "Differential psychology" versus "general psychology"	70
b. Materialities of the psyche	75
c. Organisation as a problem	79
d. Summary	88
4. Psychology in World War I	91
a. Psychiatry versus applied psychology	91
b. "Localised damage of the soul" - the ward for head shots	94
c. "Scanning the mind for damage" - Walther Moede	97
d. "The crossroads of fate" - vocational guidance for the war-disabled	101
e. Summary	106
5. Psychotechnical normalisation	109
a. The programme	112
b. The psychotechnical construction of subjectivity	130
c. Summary	151
INTERMEDIATE CONSIDERATIONS: SITUATIVITY	153
a. Summary	154
b. The limits of psychotechnical normalisation	158
c. Experience (Erlebnis) in the range of society	167
II. RADIOPHONIC EXPERIENCE (ERLEBEN)	175
1. Telephone as an extension of space	175
a. The plausibility of the phone call	177
b. The physiology of hearing	179
c. The technology of the telephone	190
d. The popularisation of the telephone	195
e. Summary	198
2. The intermediate sphere "aether"	203
a. The invisible materiality of the Hertz waves	204
b. The emancipation from wire	208
c. The emission of sound	211
d. Radio and mass culture	214
e. Summary	218
3. The acoustic space	221
a. The experiments of radio drama	224
b. The division of labour in radio drama	242
c. "The listener" as a problem	256
d. Summary	264
4. Radiophonic constructions of subjectivity	267
a. Radio as a "social relation" - Leopold von Wiese	267
b. Radiophonic fusion - Hermann Pongs	274
c. "The revolt of the listeners" - Bertolt Brecht's "radio theory"	281
d. Radiophonic circuit - Richard Kolb	288
e. Summary	297
III. THE SPACE OF NORMALISATION AND ACOUSTIC SPACE	299
1. The quantitative development of 'anonymus public' - Paul F. Lazarsfeld	299
a. Lazarsfeld style und Lazarsfeld method	302
b. The RAVAG study of 1932	306
c. The "Lazarsfeld-Stanton Program Analyzer"	309
d. Summary	313
2. Test and radio public as constructed realities - Walter Benjamin	315
a. "The carrousel of professions"	316
b. "Two kinds of popularity"	391
3. Subjectivities in artificial realities - an outlook	323
LITERATURE	337
IMAGES	361