Digital surveillance refers to the collection and management of data through the use of digital technologies and algorithms for numerous purposes including market research and state control. Using Mark Andrejevic’s concept of market surveillance and Michel Foucault’s “disciplinary society,” reflect on how your online activities leave digital traces that are useful for various entities to understand you and predict as well as shape your behaviors in the future.
- On market surveillance: What forms of personal information are produced by your own usage of digital media in the past week? To what extent is it acceptable to you that your “consumer profile” is collated and stored for future use by third parties?
- On state surveillance: Identify and explain an example of a technique of disciplinary power that applies (or likely applies) to you. Is the perceived existence of an “electronic panopticon” sufficient to reduce the likelihood of crimes and misdemeanors occurring? In other words, are you always aware that something somewhere in the hidden computer layer of your online activity is watching your digital movement? If so, does it hinder you from doing ‘illegal’ activities such as illegal downloading, piracy etc? Relate your answer to your own experience.
Include two quotes from the readings we’ve read in class, two questions, and a link as well as visual media in your post. Due Sunday, March 26 by midnight.