CHAPTER 10 THE SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

Introduction
- Jeremy Bentham envisioned in the late eighteenth century the Panopticon as an ideal
from of prison
o 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

Internal component of production

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

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

Growing impersonality
o

Intellectualization: because instead of relying on

superstitious or mystical beliefs, decisions are based on
modern scientific and technological knowledge

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

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

The iron cage seriously hampers human agency by

narrowing down the possibilities and actions of
individuals in a completely institutionalized system
of rules

Institutions outline the rules that individuals

need to follow to achieve certain end (the
goals)

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

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)

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

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 reformulated
o 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 content
o 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 presence
o 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 online
o 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:

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 reflectionism
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.
o