Reactive Attention: Video Surveillance in Berlin Shopping Malls

The paper examines the practice of use of video-surveillance in Berlin Shopping Malls. The video systems observed here do not seem to be an efficient instrument of social control and exclusion. They are used more on demand for various purposes such as the monitoring of daily tasks and the co-ordination of persons working inside the mall. The objectives publicly claimed by management – crime prevention and the like – could not be achieved because the everyday practice presents other tasks to the operators. The workplace, the personnel, their multiple tasks, their qualifications support more a reactive use of video surveillance than a proactive targeted observation of individuals, even if the equipment would allow for that. It may turn out that the CCTV infrastructure of Berlin shopping malls can be characterised best as test-beds – open for various applications. There are, however, obstacles to this in the form of data protection concerns and the lack of political and economic support to go further (tied of course to financial constraints). Finally, as shown in our study, the social practice in everyday life continues to resist one-dimensional expectations of the technological possibilities of CCTV.