CHAPTER 10 THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

Introduction- Jeremy Bentham envisioned in the late eighteenth century the Panopticon as an ideal

from of prisono Panopticon is a building, prison and its primary aim is to embody power and

control- While institutions and buildings, were set up in such a way that allowed for surveillance,

technology was not yet sufficiently developed to play a larger role in enforcing surveillance

- Recent technologies developments have given surveillance a completely different meaning and have taken the controversy around surveillance to new heights

Defining and Understanding Surveillance- Surveillance : watching over, it is observing the lives of others people and their

behaviours, appearances and social relationships is a naturally occurring social process,- Innocuous and unobtrusive observing

o Examples: coffee shops, social media sites (hours spent of viewing friends profiles information)

- Creeping: new and pervasive behaviour, users of social network sites have introduced- Observation as a tool for exerting power and control, as often occurs in totalitarian

regimes - Voyeurism: is the act of finding pleasure in secretly observing others engaged in private

behaviours, such as undressing, sexual activity, etc.

Three perspectives that Influence our Understanding of Surveillance - Lyon and Zureik three main perspectives that influence our understanding of what

surveillance is:

o Capitalism

The first big shift in surveillance occurred during the time of industrialization

There was a desire to increase productivity which lead to control

Surveillance has two roles

o Internal component of production

o Means of discipline

The role of directing and supervising, originally by controllers, was later substituted with machinery

The introduction of clock-in card and open cubicles are all part of a process of seamlessly embedding surveillance into work processes

Advantages

Political economic theory: where economic factors are the primary motivators for implementing surveillance practices, techniques, and tools

This kind of analysis also makes possible a critical stance in which systematic inequalities are exposed and critique is made of major organizations and ideologies that perpetuate the system

Weakness

Surveillance is motivated by economic factors is limiting, considering that people engage in surveillance for social reasons as well (checking the behaviours of their former partner)

Surveillance is in and itself negative reflects a simplified view of social processes

The capitalist view of surveillance in the context of work, but does not fully explain surveillance as it occurs in other social contents

o Rationalization

Rationalization and bureaucratization - Weber (person)

Rationalization: describes a fundamental shift in the functioning of society: instead of behaviour relying on kinship ties, tradition, and information affiliations, it now relies on rules based on rational choice

Three factors

Knowledge is seen as the basis for rational choice

o Intellectualization: because instead of relying on superstitious or mystical beliefs, decisions are based on modern scientific and technological knowledge

Growing impersonality

o Objectifications occur as part of rationalization, reflecting the Puritans austere work and life ethic. Individuals, with their unique stories, are incorporated in a rational system, in which there is no consideration of personal concern or matters

Enhanced control

o This increased control is a result of the Puritan ethic of self-discipline and self-control, which Weber referred to as inner worldly asceticism

Bureaucratization: refers to the establishment of efficient methods of organization that help governmental institutional and businesses fulfill their mandate

Manuals, functions and pre-established roles

Iron cage: how nation states, institutions and modern organizations exercise power and control over their citizens, members and workers, respectively

o There are two sides

Rationalization increases an individuals freedom because it leads toward greater transparency in terms of how individuals can achieve their goals

Institutions outline the rules that individuals need to follow to achieve certain end (the goals)

The iron cage seriously hampers human agency by narrowing down the possibilities and actions of individuals in a completely institutionalized system of rules

No one knows who will live in this cage in the future

The Weberian perspective on surveillance has been criticized for its focus on technological change

The Weberian perspective provides an analysis of the social system itself and not directly of the means, either technological, social, or institutional, by which rationalization and bureaucratization are put in place

o Power

For Foucault, power is an inherent part of all social relationships and social systems and his analysis of prisons represents perhaps the most compelling and influential theoretical work on surveillance

Foucaults Analysis of Power Relations in Society

- Foucault argues that these modern form of punishment do only apply to prisons but rather have become the standard means of control for our entire society

- For Foucault, discipline makes individuals, it is specific technique of a power that regards individuals both as object as instruments of its exercise

- In the Middle Ages punishment occurred as a public act of degradation

o Punishment as spectacle: the church and king penalized criminals in the public eye using torture and death by decapitation, burning, and starvation

- In the 18th century, the methods of punishment changed

o The population started questioning these shocking methods of domination and the justice system replace them with more subtle but equally powerful forms of subjugation

- Justice as a result no longer takes public responsibility for the violence that is bound up with its practise but instead moves justice into the courtroom and the practise of punishment into a private, secluded place

- Three primary forms of control:

o The examination

It places individuals in a field of documentation

Documents are records of various spheres of an individuals life and can serve as sources of power that help control an individuals behaviour

o The records can formulate categories, averages and norms that are in turn as basis for knowledge (done by those in control)

o Normalizing judgement

Deviant behaviour: behaviour that does not meet the set standards and could require disciplinary action

Normalizing judgement can establish whether an individual meets societys set standards or falls into the category of abnormal

Society has developed standards for many aspects of life. Example: Canadian National Standards for the Education of Children

The introduction of standards marks a radical shift in how discipline is accomplished by establishing precise norms normalization

o Hierarchical observation

The relevant of these forms for our present discussion

Hierarchical observation: describes how control over people can be achieved simply through surveillance

Observation occurs in a network of gazes that are laid out following a hierarchical structure, with data being conveyed from lower to higher levels

Control is articulated because the physical outline embodies the hierarchical nature of the observation

The control is detailed in that the observer has a full view of the actions of those being observed

The Panopticon as a Means of Surveillance - Benthams Panopticon

o A tower is located in the middle, the lighting is set up in such a way that the inmates cannot see the interior of the tower

This uncertainty creates a new form of control as the supervisor is no longer needs because the inmate exercises control over his or her behaviour as a result of the uncertainty of potentially being watched and also known as automatization of power

o Two principles: Visibility of power Verifiability of power

o It is the combination of power being visible and unverifiable that is so effective in establishing discipline

o Disindividualized power: where no one single observant is watching over the prisoner, but rather the architecture, location and power relations create the sense of absolute control and constant surveillance

Technology Role in the New Surveillance - Gary T Marx, three distinct approaches

o Functional view Societies require some element of security and safety and personal

information needs to be collected and stored (transformation in surveillance are only of degree, not of kind)

o Revolutionary View Pessimistic and deterministic view Argues that technologies have led to a radical transformation in the very

nature of surveillance and that basic privacy rights have be jeopardized o Cultural View

Sees information technology as radically changing society

Advocating for a democratic view Social and cultural factors moderate how information technology impacts

surveillance Sees counter-surveillance in combination with new privacy laws, norms

and values as leading toward a balance disclosure and protection of personal data

- Traditional definitions of surveillance tend to emphasize close observation of a suspected person

o Includes informants, spies, wiretapping- Marxs new surveillance: the use of technical means to extract or create personal data

o Includes hidden cameras, keystroke monitoring by employers, audio scanners- Alex W. Stedmon, as surveillance technologies become ubiquitous, the potential to

monitor location from distant control centres means that gaps in spatial knowledge and lack of local knowledge can impact on many aspects of successful surveillance and public safety

Reality TV- Traditional forms stressed the act of being watched by a single observer, in the context

of reality TV, the Orwellian notion of Big Brother becomes reformulatedo Big Brothers: the audience votes to have one of the housemates evicted

Liked with Panopticon, the housemates are aware of the camera, but they cant see them and they knew they were being monitored, but didnt know when.

Front stage: public self Back stage: the housemates have very little private time

- The Internet stream is supplemented with parallel updates via email, text messaging, blogs and discussion boards, leading toward a form of hyper-surveillance

o Television sets with embedded security cameras-referred to as tele screens- not only broadcasts censored, state-approved content but also interactive monitoring systems used to keep citizens under governmental control

- In the past, a clear distinction was maintained between those who created the media products and those who consume them

o Audiences were passive recipients of information and had limited input in the development and production of content

- Now Reality TV as shifted the locus of power, and the audiences are now also active participants, through direct involvement in the production process and the creation of the content

o The participants in the shows are the contento Surveillance becomes yet another form of entertainment

- Big Brother takes commodification to new levels, in that it sells everyday life to audiences, a process that has been referred to as the commodification of daily life

Digital Surveillance - Digital surveillance: refer not only to observation via the Internet but also the collection

of data via digital networks, tools and devices- The primary purpose of tracking this behaviour is to provide users with better search

results as well as to display customized ads- Even though, data is considered personal and private, most users will willingly disclose

this information in order to gain access to the service despite concerns about their privacy potentially being compromised

- Online users are not fully aware of their vulnerability to privacy threats because they follow the nothing to hide, nothing to fear rule

- Online users disclose information online to have an online presenceo For people to have a online persona, they must be first engaged in what

Sunden has referred to as writing themselves into being Key elements: the profile, status profile. pictures, and connections

o Information revelation: the trend on the internet is toward more disclosure of personal information

- There is no single definition of privacy because is it a fluid and far-reaching concept- Westin defines information privacy as: the claim of an individual to determine what

information about himself or herself should be known to other.- Immediate threats: those that result shortly after disclosing personal information on

social network sites, including sexual predators and identity thefts- Future threats: those that occur long after the information has been disclosed- Social privacy: refers to the concern that known others, such as friends, acquaintances

and family members will discover our personal information- Institutional privacy: refers to the threat of information being mined and used by

governments or corporations - There are several reasons why people are concerned about digital privacy threats

o Digital content can be copied and forwarded easily onlineo People worry about the persistence and search ability of the content, which

making that content accessible to family, friends and acquaintances and also allows strangers who have no connection with the author

o The information taken out of context can be interpreted in different ways, potentially leading to misinterpretations

o There is a clashing of different cultures, understanding, values and norms when personal information is moved from one social setting to another

- Privacy paradox: on one side, user report high levels of concern about the potential immediate or future misuse of their personal data and on the other hand people continue to disclose large amounts of personal information, including pictures, information on friends, their whereabouts

- Surveillance on social media is not about one person doing the observing and another person is being observed, as in traditional surveillance; instead, surveillance on social media is about everyone being both object and subject at the same time also known as peer monitoring

Counter-surveillance as a Means of Personal Resistance - there are two forms of counter-surveillance:

o sousveillance sousveillance: it is a form of counter-surveillance that empowers those

subjected to institutional, state, and corporate surveillance practices A subset of sousveillance practices are referred to as inverse

surveillance and consist of recording, monitoring, analyzing, and questioning surveillance technologies and their proponents, and also recording how surveillance takes place by authority figures, such as policemen, guards and border patrols.

Reflectionism: a perspective that proposes using technology as a mirror to question and confront the ubiquity of surveillance in our modern society

Reflectionism is a method for inquiry in performance with the aim of the following:

o Uncovering the Panopticon and undercutting its primacy and privilege

o Relocating the relationship of the surveillance society within a more traditional notion of observability

The process of reflectionism is closely linked with detournement, a concept introduced by Rogers to describe the tactic of using those very same tools that are employed to control us as a means to provoke the social controllers and make them aware of the imbalance of power

Anti-surveillance activists groups are forms of reflectionismo privacy protection strategies

Privacy strategies: occurs at a micro level with people protecting themselves against potential threats to their privacy

Example: Privacy paradox theory, excluding personal information, untagging from photos, deleting messages, blocking contacts from social media sites

Privacy protection strategies are becoming increasingly important in online environments, where private and public space easily blur, users can easily copy and transfer data, and personal information persistently leaves digital traces.