ABSTRACT
The group of experts in modern societies does not occupy itself with the originary production of knowledge. The experts under discussion here have no laboratories, no research funding; they do not publish in scientifi c journals; their reputation is not based on the quality and number of their publications; they receive no prizes for their scientifi c or technical achievements, and their professional careers are not guided by the contributions that they make to new discoveries, in the judgement of their peers. Experts in modern societies pass on access to specialized knowledge to the apparently rapidly growing groups of those who require and seek advice: those who are forced to this step due to their particular circumstances, whether out of time pressure and ignorance; because of urgent problems that quickly must be solved; out of respect for knowledge; or simply out of uncertainty. In contrast to scientists, experts as a rule have clients, whom they supply either directly or indirectly with knowledge – as demonstrated by the examples of
management consultants or educational advisors. Their relationship to their clients, and not to their peers, is the crucial social relationship upon which their professional success depends. The knowledge that experts apply, then, is seldom created by these experts themselves. This means that they function as mediators between producers of knowledge and users of knowledge; and thus, between those who create the capacity to take action and those whose task it is to act. There are also cases, of course, in which the functions of the knowledge producer and its mediator are carried out, by and large, by the same individual. But the quite particular relationship that experts produce, or whose maintenance is expected of them, does not include – as we have already emphasized – restricting their function in one way or another to the mediation of information, understood in a narrow or even neutral sense as a simple fl ow of information from source to recipient. Their function, in other words, is by no means passive; they do not merely represent a convenient and effi cient means of transport for the transmission of knowledge. They should not be considered passive media that merely collect, organize, systematize or in any other form ‘operate’ neutrally with knowledge, in order to convey it afterwards to various public customers. Of course they participate in all such activities, but the result is that their work alters the knowledge that they operate with. Knowledge is never a completely unproblematic ‘currency’ that can simply be exchanged. The controls and restrictions affecting this exchange are often considerable, and powerfully enforced. Experts refer to their individual interpretations of knowledge in a purposeful manner. The determination of where the priorities for action
are to be set, and the assessment of the situation by the clients, thus often originate under the mandate of experts who were consulted for their advice. The knowledge being passed on undergoes a transformation, in a certain sense, during its mediation. Experts mediate knowledge and apply it, but this process comprises an active element. And it is just this activity that must be very precisely investigated, for this transformative activity is one of the keys to understanding the function of experts in contemporary societies, and the conditions that the demand for knowledge is subject to in these societies.
