Transcript Publicized Intimacies in Social Media & Surveillance Presentation

Lemi Baruh
&
Levent Soysal
Kadir Has University
Background & Problem
 Rise of social media:
 “Empowering” individuals to express
themselves
 Prerequisite: disclosure of intimate details
 Discussions regarding threats to individual
privacy
 Control over identification information
 Fraud & data security
 Protection of underage users’ privacy (from sexual predators)
 Institutions snooping around
 Kansas University penalizes students after perusing Facebook
photos of dorm parties.
 Microsoft checks Facebook pages of potential employees.
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Background & Problem
 Most studies on privacy implications of
social media adopted a piecemeal
approach:
 In isolation from each other and the broader
context of a changing regime of surveillance
 Purpose:
 Investigate two related trends and their
relationship to social media
 Rise of personal, intimate and the subjective as a
social currency
 Evolving nature of automated surveillance
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The New Individual: Image Laborer
 Ulrich Beck’s Reflexive Modernity:
 The self became the primary agent of
“Professionals in pursuit
of image”
meaning.
 Objective, institution driven information
loses credence as the currency of
information derived from subjective &
personal experience increases.
 Phantasmagoric Workplace*
 The individual is responsible for
maintaining his/her own image
constantly.
 Having a unique image, being
recognized is a crucial prerequisite of
success in contemporary capitalism
*Hearn, Alison. 2006. 'John, a 20-year old Boston native with a great sense of humour': on the spectacularization of
the 'self' and the incorporation of identity in the age of reality television. International Journal of Media and Cultural
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Politics 2 (2):131-147.
The New Individual: Image Laborer
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The New Individual: Image
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Modular Identity of the New Individual
 Introversive Publicity
 Individuals with introversive personality are
characterized as being introspective.
 Self expression of subjective experience in
social media, despite its public nature, is
introspective.
 It is part of the image labor, and hence it is an
act of publicity.
 This does not mean it is intended to mislead
 It is modular
 This does not mean it is incoherent.
 Each component added helps create and
communicate a unique identity.
 The introversive is temporary, incomplete
and fleeting
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Self Disclosure & Privacy Rights
 In an environment of extensive surveillance, self-disclosure is seen as the only viable way
for individuals to actively participate in the creation of images about themselves*
 Example: Dr. Hasan Elahi (www.trackingtransience.net)
*Groombridge, N. (2002). Crime control or crime culture TV?. Surveillance and Society, 1, 30-36.
*Koskela, H. (2004). Webcams, TV shows and mobile phones: Empowering exhibitionism. Surveillance & Society, 2(2/3), 200-215.
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Contemporary Surveillance
 Data intensive. Social and other forms of
interactive media provide an increasingly
larger share of data.
 Data mining – algorithm based detection of
deviations from the base statistic*
 Three innocuous acts combined, who knows if they
are a threat?
 The components of the modular self are taken
out of their context.
*Andrejevic, M. (2007). iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas
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From Panopticon to…
 The panopticon’s disciplinary
function is partly dependent on
uncertainty
 “Chilling effect”
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Kafkaesque Surveillance*
*Solove, D. J. (2001). Privacy and power: Computer databases and metaphors for information privacy. Stanford Law Review, 53, 1393-1462.
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Kafkaesque Surveillance*
 Permanency of data
 Aura of Objectivity: Rationalization of surveillance through
automated mining
 “...figure of the vicious tyrant is replaced by that of the indifferent
bureaucrat.”**
 Automated data-mining dehumanizes and consequently “removes
human bias”.
 The automated surveillant is indifferent and hence its inferences are
“objective”
 Reliance on statistical evidence adds to this aura of objectivity
*Solove, D. J. (2001). Privacy and power: Computer databases and metaphors for information privacy. Stanford Law
Review, 53, 1393-1462.
**Mark Andrejevic. iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007
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