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Lecture III

Dive into issues of surveillance, privacy, and control in society with a focus on technology's impact. Explore concepts from Foucault to Giddens and how surveillance manifests in public spaces and new media. Reflect on the balance between privacy and security.

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Lecture III

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  1. Lecture III Surveillance Society Powerpoint by Miyase Christensen Johan Lindell, Ph. D Student Johan.lindell@kau.se Media and Communication Studies Karlstad University

  2. Lecture outline • Quick introduction to surveillance • Miyase Christensen Podcast • Coffee • Surveillance Documentary

  3. What are some of the issues? • Electronic surveillance (issues arising from the “architecture” of the medium) • Personal privacy • Freedom • National sovereignty and state control • Cyber-terrorism • Audience control and surveillance

  4. What is surveillance • Pervasive monitoring of daily life • Surveillance emerges as a problematic issue because of its relationship to privacy and social power

  5. What is privacy • …

  6. What is private? Can we say?.. • Our name? • Home address, home telephone number? • School grades (exams)? • Choice of TV programs, films, books • Bank accounts? Salary? • Who you e-mailed and what you said? • Who you called? • Religious choice? • Who you voted for? • Medical history? • …and?

  7. The idea of surveillance, privacy and control • As concepts in academic literature, surveillance and control if often linked to Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish) • Foucault uses “Panopticon” (all+seeing) as a metaphor to explain state/institutional power and control over the public • Anthony Giddens – Surveillance as natural part of modern societies • And this idea goes back to the architect Jeremy Bentham and his blueprint of a prison design in the 1700s.

  8. Bentham’s Blueprint

  9. PANOPTICON

  10. Panoptical/ panopticon are used as metaphors in media studies to explain the role of media technologies in surveillance

  11. The idea of panoptic society involves • Society controlled through fear of ‘Big Brother’ • The idea/belief that we are monitored • Watching each other and the self (self-policing)

  12. Surveillance in Public Spaces • A Typical UK resident in urban areas is filmed about 300 times a day • Estimated 200,000 cameras in the city of Shenzhen in China • Getting widespread in other countries as well • Other instances of surveillance we can think of?

  13. Privacy, Surveillance and New Media/Cyberspace • New technologies, particularly new media tech. are changing the dynamics between surveillance and privacy • With ICTs, much more than just physical space and public action can be monitored • Data is digital, so almost everything we do leaves a mark • information society = panoptic society?

  14. For example, what does your web browser say about you? • standard HTTP headers: • Your email address • Your browser software • Your “referer”: The page you came from by following a link • Your user name and password • Your client-IP: Client’s IP address • And Cookies: Server-generated ID label

  15. Privacy and surveillance at home? • Most people consider “home” to be a private space • But, with ICTs and new media, the notion of “home as private space” is becoming very contested • Our Internet use • TV consumption • Electricity use (with smart metering) • Even food consumption Can be traced

  16. Who is surveilling us in a new media environment? • Government (Carnivore, wiretapping) • Crackers/Hackers (Theft) • Private businesses/companies • And others can • ‘Google-stalk’ us • Trace other electronic data

  17. So our privacy is protected and invaded…through • Satellites, airwaves, wires, networks, databases and search engines • And ICTs and new media change/alter what is private and what is public space

  18. Again, we can think of these as • Technologies of freedom • Technologies of invasion Our reaction depends on whether we care, how much we care and what we do about it There is constant contestation on issues of privacy and surveillance between different interest groups in the society

  19. Some people and groups in the society believe… • “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” • Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania

  20. Some others believe sacrificing a little privacy is worth the security we get from being surveilled. • In Britain, for example, a 2002 survey shows that…

  21. How much of social networking online is actual social networking? And to what degree do you consider it to be surveillance (or do you)? Why/why not?

  22. Christensen, Miyase. (2009). Podcast http://backstory.org.au/wordpress/ • The Surveillance State http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXphmb3SwTg&feature=PlayList&p=12AF7A128716000E&index=0 • Christensen, Miyase. (2009). ’Watching me Watching you’ in Le Monde Diplomatique Nov 2009. http://mondediplo.com/2009/10/02networking

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