Theories of Surveillance

What societies did Foucault locate?

Disciplinary Societies - characterised by the organisation of vast space of enclosure

• individuals never stop passing from one closed environment to another

• prison serves as the analogical model as all the other institutions are based on its design of the panopticon

Always the possibility of people in these institutions being watched leading to discipline themselves

According to Deleuze what societies do we now live in?

No longer live in this ‘disciplinary society’ but rather we have moved to a ‘society of control’ institutions have stopped exercising their power over us by enclosing us in one place

• no longer restrained by enclosures structures - appear to be free, but we notice how it diffuses ‘responsibility’ throughout life

• expected to be responsive to demands of work even away from the office - “freed” from the enclosed workspace, the demands of work come to pervade all of our time

What is a Synoptic Society according to Mathiesen?

Today’s media saturated society, the media, as well as allowing the few to see the many, allowing the many to see the few

• ‘everyone watches everybody’

What is the effects of a Synoptic Society according to Thompson?

Powerful groups are now scared of the media’s surveillance of them as damaging information about them might be revealed - form of social control over their behaviour

• public monitor each other - warn others in an attempt to promote self-discipline

How does McCahill criticise the idea of an Synoptic Society?

Bottom up scrutiny might not always be able to reverse ‘hierarchies of surveillance’ as anti-terror laws, police powers etc have the ability to confiscate camera/phones etc

What is Surveillance Assemblages according to Haggerty and Ericson?

Surveillance technologies now involve manipulating virtual objects (digital data) in cyber space rather than physical bodies in physical space

• technologies are now combined e.g. CCTV footage is combined with facial recognition software - ‘surveillant assemblages’: moving towards a world where data from technologies can be combined into a ‘data double’ of the individual

What is Risk Management according to Feeley and Simon?

“New technology of power” operates through CJS

• focuses on groups

• prevention

• uses calculation of risk

e.g. Airport security checks on known offender “risk factors”: age, sex, religion, etc - gives each person a risk score

• aim is to predict and prevent future offending

What is Risk Management according to Lyon?

Surveillance engages in ‘social sorting’ - people are categorised and treated differently according to the level of risk they pose

• leads to ‘categorical suspicion’ - people placed under suspicion of wrongdoing by simply belonging to a social category or group

What is Risk Management lead to according to Lewis?

2010 of West Midlands Police - introduce new counter terror scheme in two Muslim suburbs of Birmingham

• 150 ANPR cameras in the area with the result of making the community feel like they were being placed under suspicion

What is the result of Labelling and Surveillance?

Acting on stereotypes - leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy

What is Labelling and Surveillance lead to according to Norris and Armstrong?

“massively disproportionate targeting” of young black males for no other reason that their membership of that particular social group when it comes to CCTV operator focus

• judgement based on typification’s

• result in self-fulfilling prophecy