Surveillance societyA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWIn particular, the French philosopher Michel
Foucault (1926–84) has focused on the ‘all-
seeing’ Panopticon (see panopticon gaze). In
Discipline and Punish (Penguin, 1977) he likens
the Panopticon to the Christian God’s infi nite
knowledge, and to computer monitoring of indi-
viduals in advanced capitalism. He argues that
surveillance as represented by the contemporary
Panopticon creates subjects responsible for their
own subjection (see privacy).
We are subject to surveillance not only as
citizens but also as audience for media. In an
article entitled ‘Tracking the audience’, in Ques-
tioning Media: A Critical Introduction (Sage,
1990), edited by John Downing, Ali Mohammadi
and Annabelle Srebemy-Mohammadi, Oscar
Gandy Jr remarks how the fragmentation of
audience for media, rendered possible by new
technology, has resulted in a desperation among
programme-makers that has led to two strate-
gies aimed at survival.
Th ese, Gandy identifi es as rationalization, that
is ‘the pursuit of effi ciency in the production,
distribution, and sale of goods and services’, and
surveillance which ‘provides the information
necessary for greater control’. Increasingly, says
Gandy, ‘the surveillance of audiences resembles
police surveillance of suspected criminals’ and
people are less and less aware that their behav-
iour as audience is being measured.
In A Report of the Surveillance Society for the
UK Information Commissioner (2006), edited
by David Murakami Wood, the team of authors
write of ‘massive surveillance systems that
underpin modern existence’. While acknowledg-
ing that surveillance has benefi ts to society, the
proliferation of modes of surveillance is produc-
ing ‘situations where distinctions of class, race,
gender, geography and citizenship are currently
being exacerbated and institutionalized’.
A danger identifi ed by the Report is that we
‘may become accustomed to being surveilled’,
our ‘activities and movements tracked and also
anticipated, without our noticing it, and – espe-
cially in the public services – without the ability
to opt in or opt out, or to understand fully what
happens to our data’.
The Report, freely available as a download,
explains in detail a range of devices and develop-
ments in surveillance, touching on social sorting,
function creep and location technology. The
editors warn that ‘technologies are at their most
important when they become ubiquitous, taken
for granted and largely invisible’.
Of course in the age of social networking
(see networking: social networking),to suppress the speed at which the new medium
was introduced, to minimize disruption.’
Winston returns to, and expands on, his analysis
of the development of media technologies in his
book Media Technology and Society: A History
from the Telegraph to the Internet (Routledge,
1998). See technological determinism. See
also topic guide under media: technologies.
▶M. Hank Hausler, Media Facades: History, Technol-
ogy and Media Content (AVEdition, 2009).
Surround See eisenberg’s model of commu-
nication and identity, 2001.
Surveillance Keeping watch; used in a media
sense, the word indicates the way in which
listeners, viewers or readers employ the media
with the aim of gleaning information from them:
‘TV news provides food for thought’ or ‘I like
to see how big issues are sorted out.’ Equally
surveillance implies the process of authority and
its agencies keeping watch on the public. See
uses and gratifications theory.
Surveillance society New technology has vastly
increased and speeded up access to personal
data by those in authority, or those individuals or
organizations involved in fi nancial, administra-
tive or commercial transactions with members
of the public. Each time we use a switch card;
each time we dial a telephone number, drive past
a CCTV camera (or even leave our front door),
we off er notifi cation of our activities, our where-
abouts, and our lifestyle. David Lyon in The
Electronic Eye: Th e Rise of Surveillance Society
(University of Minnesota Press, 1994) identifi es
four domains of surveillance in contemporary
life – government administration, policing
and security, the workplace and the consumer
market place; and for Lyon, a key characteristic
of surveillance is that it operates across boundar-
ies.
Th e concept of a surveillance society is not
new. Th e English philosopher, social and legal
reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), in a
proposal for the humanitarian treatment of
prisoners, suggested the construction of what he
called a Panopticon. Th is was a circular building
of cells with a central watchtower from which
constant surveillance of the prisoners would take
place, without their being certain at any given
time that they were being directly observed.
Th ey would be well aware, of course, of the pres-
ence of surveillance and this knowledge would,
without coercion, rule their behaviour until, so
Bentham theorized, their good behaviour would
become self-regulating.
For several commentators the Panopticon
has become a metaphor for our own times.