The Superfluousness of Big Brother: Charting the Evolution of Surveillance in Twentieth and Twenty First Century American and Global Anglophone Literature and Television

This dissertation charts the evolution of surveillance as presented in twentieth and twenty-first century American and Global Anglophone literature and television. It analyzes six exemplary works: 1984, The Circle, Black Mirror, Purity, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and The Lowland. It seeks to move beyond the scope of Benthamite and Foucauldian approaches to surveillance studies in order to examine the post-panoptic structures of the synopticon and the banopticon. To this end, this dissertation argues the six illustrative works mentioned above help underscore the shift from the few watching the many to the many watching the few. It seeks to explain the paradox whereby the televisual capabilities have never been more powerful yet the need for them has been rendered superfluous by an attitudinal, paradigmatic shift in western society. Finally, this dissertation endeavors to explain how literature productively complicates the issue of watching and how, paradoxically, we have never been better connected while simultaneously never been more alone. It posits another paradox as a solution: that we can know someone better by reading their words than by connecting with them through “social media.

Monitored

This book explores a central contradiction of 21st century economy and society: the more morally and politically unaccountable capitalism and capitalists are, the more accountable the mass majority of its subjects must become. The technocratic ideology and surveillance culture of our modern marketized societies hides a deeper reality of a free market that is unmanageable and a corporate elite whose actions cannot be traced let alone regulated. This work highlights the paradoxical way an often disjointed and unjustifiable modern neoliberalism persists through subjecting individuals and communities to a wide range of technical and ethical 'accounting' in all areas of contemporary life. These pervasive practices of monitoring and codifying everything and everyone mask how at its heart this system and its elites remain socially uncontrollable and ethically out of control

Audio beacon technologies, surveillance and social order

This thesis explores audio beacon technology with the aim of elucidating the implications of this technology for the individual in contemporary society. Audio beacons are hidden inside digital devices. They emit and receive high frequency audio signals which are inaudible to the human ear, thereby generating and transmitting data without our knowledge. The motivation for this research is to raise awareness of the prevalence of audio beacon technologies and to explore their implications for contemporary society. The research takes an interdisciplinary approach involving – 1) a survey of audio beacon technology, 2) a contextualization in terms of contemporary theories of surveillance and control and 3) an interpretation in terms of 20th century dystopian literature. The hidden surveillance and privacy of this technology is examined mainly through the humanistic perspective of George Orwell’s book Nineteen Eighty-Four. The general conclusion formed is that audio beacon technologies can serve as a surveillance method enhancing authoritarian and exploitative regimes. To mitigate the negative impacts of audio beacons, this research proposes two types of solutions – 1) individual actions that will have an immediate effect and 2) governmental legislation that can improve privacy in the longer term. Both of these solutions cannot happen without a raised public awareness, towards which this research hopes to make a contribution. Finally, this research introduces the notion of a \u27digital paradox\u27 in which the dystopian worlds of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley are brought together in order to characterize surveillance and control in contemporary society

The making of smart cities : borders, security and value in New Town Kolkata and Cape Town

The making of smart cities transforms not only infrastructures and practices but also the techniques of urban government and security, and economic processes. This thesis draws on analysis conducted in two research sites: Cape Town, in South Africa and New Town Rajarhat, a satellite township on the outskirts of Kolkata, to present three key arguments. Firstly, and as opposed to mainstream narratives that describe smart cities as seamlessly connected environments, this thesis suggests that urban digitalisation is linked to bordering processes. Whereas critical literature has comprehensively discussed the political implications and risks associated with smart city projects, such as corporatisation and technocratic governance, the specific relations between digital infrastructures and borders, within the urban space, have not yet been discussed. Secondly, this thesis argues that smart cities are inherently security projects, insofar as the deployment of a computing infrastructure of sensing initiates a preemptive apparatus. In security systems, such as the Emergency Policing and Incident Command (EPIC) program in Cape Town, or the Xpresso software for social media monitoring in New Town, algorithms are continuously modelling and acting upon future scenarios; from traffic jams to wildfires, from crime hotspots to citizens’ moods. My third argument is that the computing apparatus of security also serves as an infrastructure of value extraction. Recently, there has been much theorising and debate about security platforms’ economic operations, but the situated modalities in which they extract value from the urban environment remain to be examined. Overall, this thesis points to the socio-spatial, governmental and economic relations that computing infrastructures are generating, or reconfiguring, in the urban environment. These relations articulate distinct processes, including the hierarchisation and control of the urban space, preemptive policies and extractive strategies. Critically analysing these processes allows the registration of the political implications of smart city projects

Law in the present future : approaching the legal imaginary of smart cities with science (and) fiction

This doctoral research concerns smart cities, describing digital solutions and social issues related to their innovative technologies, adopted models, and major projects around the world. The many perspectives mentioned in it were identified by online tools used for the textual analysis of two databases that were built from relevant publications on the main subject by authors coming from media and academia. Expected legal elements emerged from the applied process, such as privacy, security, transparency, participation, accountability, and governance. A general review was produced on the information available about the public policies of Big Data in the two municipal cases of Rio de Janeiro and Montréal, and their regulation in the Brazilian and Canadian contexts. The combined approaches from science and literature were explored to reflect on the normative concerns represented by the global challenges and local risks brought by urban surveillance, climate change, and other neoliberal conditions. Cyberpunk Science Fiction reveals itself useful for engaging with the shared problems that need to be faced in the present time, all involving democracy. The results achieved reveal that this work was, in fact, about the complex network of practices and senses between (post)modern law and the imaginary of the future.Cette recherche doctorale centrée sur les villes intelligentes met en évidence les solutions numériques et les questionnements sociétaux qui ont trait aux technologies innovantes, ainsi qu’aux principaux modèles et projets développés autour d’elles à travers le monde. Des perspectives multiples en lien avec ces développements ont été identifiées à l’aide d’outils en ligne qui ont permis l’analyse textuelle de deux bases de données comprenant des publications scientifiques et des écrits médiatiques. De ce processus analytique ont émergé des éléments juridiques relatifs aux questions de vie privée, de sécurité, de transparence, de participation, d’imputabilité et de gouvernance. De plus, à partir de ces informations a été réalisée une revue des politiques publiques relatives aux mégadonnées dans les villes de Rio de Janeiro et de Montréal, ainsi que des réglementations nationales du Canada et du Brésil en lien avec ce sujet. Finalement, à travers l’exploration d’écrits scientifiques et fictionnels de la littérature, les principaux enjeux normatifs soulevés localement et mondialement par la surveillance urbaine, les changements climatiques et les politiques néolibérales ont pu être mis à jour. Le courant cyberpunk de la science-fiction s’est avéré particulièrement utile pour révéler les principaux problèmes politiques, en lien avec la préservation de la démocratie, auxquelles sont confrontées nos sociétés présentement. Les résultats de la recherche démontrent finalement la présence d’un réseau de pratiques et de significations entre le droit (post)moderne et les représentations imaginaires du futur

New mobile visualities and the social communication of photography : Instagram as a case study

This research intends to show how visuality, through the mobility of Instagram (a social media platform designed for photo sharing), is modifying individuals’ perception of the world and their mediated lives. It examines how Instagram transforms individuals’ perception of interpersonal relationships, marketing, privacy and surveillance, identity and memory, and communication. It attempts a critical re-reading of the combined interrelations between the concept of mobility (smart mobile devices) and the thematic areas mentioned above. Conducting an empirical examination, it delineates the changing dynamics that digitality determines within the contemporary experience of visual communication. In order to understand visual practices it is important to consider how relationships develop among individuals, visual technologies, practices and images, society and culture (Pink, 2007: 35). A qualitative research method informed by netnography, computer-mediated interviews and visual analysis (Rose, 2007) is employed in this study. Findings show that the ubiquitous use of smart mobile devices guides us towards the development of new forms and conceptions of mobile mediated visualities.The critical analysis of the (embedded) multiple-case study presents the innovative transformations that the mediation and mobility of Instagram bring into everyday relations between human-technologies. Findings show that now that daily life is experienced as a succession of photo opportunities that allow the creation of social networks but do not replace physical relationships. Images figure as a fair means of communication although they cannot fulfil verbal ones. However, the connections that images establish become a valuable part of new social media marketing strategies. With the widespread use of the platform, companies start to monitor users and influence their online behaviour without causing concern in relation to privacy and surveillance issues. The protection of personal information instead is related to the visibility that the contents of images acquire within the virality of the Internet. Within this, the voyeuristic spirit that animates the platform affects individuals’ interest in disclosing self-identity through visual metaphors. The disclosure of visual narrations of the self, at the same time, models the sharing of new networked archives of personal and collective memories.The ephemerality of digital culture is embraced by smart mobile technologies considering the importance that individuals give to the act of producing multimedia contents more than the content itself. Smart mobile devices represent the element of mediation in social instances and they strongly represent the foundation of a new mobile visualities aesthetic. Societies produce peculiar forms of expression and communication that are shaped by the co-presence of individual demands and the current typology of means of communication. Every alteration in the structure of societies has influence on individuals and on means of expression. This thesis shows that in contemporary life visualities have crucial functions in different environments such as business, leisure, and surveillance. Lastly, the triangulation of mediation-mobility-visuality produces a snapshot aesthetic, which radically transforms traditional functions of photography

The age of interactivity: An historical analysis of public discourses on interactivity in Ireland 1995 - 2009.

Interactivity is integral to media and communications and yet is a contested concept in the literature. There is little agreement on its meaning not least because of its multidisciplinary nature. Previous research, concerned with finding a single definition of interactivity, has focused narrowly on specific contexts of communication using limited methodologies. This thesis argues that several meanings of interactivity are in circulation and that the search for one bounded definition constrains understanding of its role and fails to recognise its analytical potential. The study makes an original contribution to research by presenting findings from an analysis of public discourses on interactivity, a valuable source of material neglected in research to date. It shows that at least nine thematic representations of interactivity are in circulation representing different aspects of its role in communicative events. These are identified as the Empowering, Commercial, Pedagogical, Aesthetic, Ludological, Futuropia, Hula-hoop, Sceptical and Information Society themes. The results are based on a longitudinal content and discourse analysis of fifteen years of newspaper coverage in Ireland, an original methodological addition to research, reflecting both a unique national perspective on the concept and the flow of influential international discourses within a small state. The content analysis draws a detailed quantitative picture of how and where interactivity arises in news coverage while the discourse analysis examines qualitative aspects of the dominant, overlapping and conflicting discourses around interactivity and the discourse communities operating behind the talk. The analysis illustrates how thematic representations of interactivity coexist both in discourse and in individual communicative events, suggesting the potential for layered interactivities in communication. The ‘age of interactivity’ describes a wide range of discourses from hype and myths around interactivity to its potentially transformative role in communication. Overall this thesis highlights the value of interactivity as a communication concept and analytical tool with rich research potential