2 results
2 - Beyond Wicked Facebook: A Vital Materialism Perspective
- Edited by Jordan McKenzie, University of Wollongong, Australia, Roger Patulny, University of Wollongong, Australia
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- Book:
- Dystopian Emotions
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 13 May 2022
- Print publication:
- 13 December 2021, pp 34-52
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Summary
Introduction
Ever since the widespread distribution and adoption of digital technologies in everyday life from the 1980s onwards, two counter imaginaries have been expressed in both the popular media and the academic literature. The first imaginary deals with the techno- utopian dimensions of novel digital technologies: that is, the almost magical benefits they can supposedly offer human lives in terms of promoting social networks and communication, improving health and productivity, solving mundane problems and removing the tedium of low-skilled work. The second imaginary is directly opposed in its dystopian directions, positioning digital technologies as manipulating people, knowing ‘too much about them’, profiting from their personal data without their knowledge or consent, taking away their jobs, de-humanizing personal relationships, de-skilling children and young people and so on. Both imaginaries are simplistic, techno-determinist and hyperbolic, yet they continue to receive widespread attention and promotion (Wajcman, 2017).
Techno-dystopian visions of new digital technologies can be characterized as a broader affective atmosphere (Anderson, 2009) experienced by countries of the Global North, in which the future is increasingly imagined as disastrous, with little hope for redemption (Urry, 2016; Tutton, 2017). Sociologists of the future have identified the seemingly intractable pessimism that pervades future-oriented imaginaries. Tutton (2017) characterizes this approach as outlining ‘wicked futures’, replete with imaginaries of social problems that are difficult to solve. For Urry (2016, p. 33), the dystopian portrayal of novel technologies and other trends such as environmental pollution and climate change is born of what he describes as ‘new catastrophic futures’: a pessimistic sentiment about the future that began to emerge in the early 2000s.
This timeline is evident in the altered visions of digital technologies. Devices and software that in the late 20th century seemed to hold much promise for contributing to human flourishing, by the turn of the century had begun to feel tarnished, their potential for democratic expression, activism and civil society overtaken by what Zuboff (2019) describes as ‘surveillance capitalism’. Surveillance capitalism refers to the commodification of the digitized information about people that is generated when they go online and use mobile devices and apps. Zuboff's influential book on this subject is replete with generalizing and hyperbolic statements about the manipulation and exploitation of internet users by the major tech companies: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Facebook.
11 - Dataveillance and the Dividuated Self: The Everyday Digital Surveillance of Young People
- Edited by Bruce Arrigo, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Brian Sellers, Eastern Michigan University
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- Book:
- The Pre-Crime Society
- Published by:
- Bristol University Press
- Published online:
- 14 April 2023
- Print publication:
- 30 July 2021, pp 249-268
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Summary
Introduction
‘Data is the new currency’ has become a deceptively simple mantra of the past decade; it is the oil of the digital era, the hitherto untapped gold mine of the 21st century. If we take the metaphor a little further and think of the phrase ‘to have currency’ (meaning something has a lot of value), is it then to suggest that those who produce more data should be considered to be more active and engaged citizens, and those who do not produce data—or produce less of it—are of less value? Furthermore, if data is as valuable a commodity as the metaphors suggest, it might follow that there would be significant regulation and safeguards about how, when and why it is harvested from the individuals that generate it.
In this chapter, we seek to explore the multiple ways in which young people experience everyday monitoring and dataveillance. The chapter is divided into three main sections. Firstly, we explore the concept of dataveillance, paying special attention to the way that it can be instructive and shape behavior. There is a pervasive presumption, similar to the excavation of oil, that data can be extracted from people and actions with little impact upon them. We seek to trouble this notion by exploring the way in which data and its uses are mutually transformative, shaping the future decisions and actions of data subjects. Framing the emergence of dataveillance with the Deleuzian concept of ‘dividuation’, we examine how the datafication industry has real consequences for young people. In a field in which empirical data is scarce, in the second section we draw upon findings from a study with young people themselves. In particular, there is a lack of research that gives young people the opportunity to define and identify the forms of surveillance they feel and experience. The findings are structured by a broad taxonomy of surveillance devices; visual, biometric, spatial and algorithmic in order to explicate the multiple ways in which the self becomes fragmented—dividuated—across dataharvesting technologies. The third and final section presents the key ethical concerns regarding the surveillance of young people. We argue that an approach that is oriented towards dividuals allows a rich and nuanced understanding of data ethics.