World's first MA course in surveillance studies is here
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Gavin Smith |
Dr Gavin Smith, a lecturer in sociology at City University London and an established authority
in the field of surveillance studies, explains why surveillance is a central concept in policing
practices and the analytical tools the world’s first MA degree in surveillance studies provides
Criminology continues to establish
a variety of exciting
and politically significant
research specialisms – surveillance
studies is one such
field stealthily positioning itself
at the very heart of the discipline.
The insatiable appetite of
governmental, policing and consumer
agencies (and curious
individuals) for personal information
has helped cultivate the burgeoning “surveillance society”.
Whilst the term has become
something of a cliché in contemporary
culture, with competing
depictions routinely appearing in
a range of popular domains, citizens
of the western world
increasingly live their lives under
ubiquitous surveillance.
Surveillance technologies
have, quite simply, become an
unexceptional part of everyday
existence. The surveillance society
is a cultural and bureaucratic
order where our “digital trail” has
become a valuable, marketable
commodity – with our digitallycreated “data double” becoming
a more trustworthy source than
the embodied individual to whom
the data relates.
The fragments of information
that our daily actions and transactions
leave behind is silently
collected by a range of largely
invisible devices, before being
ordered and sorted according to
institutionally-imposed categories
in large, networked databases,
which can directly and indirectly
impact upon our life chances and
social mobility.
Capturing, classifying and
shaping behaviour has become
the key objective of surveillance
systems. The everyday activities
of citizens have helped produce,
fuel and sustain a “surveillant
crucible” – a technological and
cultural infrastructure where individuals,
paradoxically, are both
watchers and watched.
The success of reality-television
programming and the Web
2.0 phenomenon (Facebook,
Bebo, Twitter, MySpace, etc.) are
ample testament to this.
For these reasons, surveillance
has become a central concept
in scholarly understandings
of contemporary social relations,
organisational processes and, in
particular, policing practices.
Emerging in a context of
omnipresent electronic monitoring,
surveillance studies seek to
critically investigate and better
understand how and why personal
details are routinely collected,
stored, checked, traded and
processed by various agencies
and what the implications are for
individuals and groups. A number of important social
issues are at stake from such
developments – trust, privacy,
equality, citizenship, democracy,
power and governance are only
some of the many values creaking
and metamorphosing under
the transformational weight of
the surveillance society.
Surveillance methods like
CCTV, ANPR, bugging, fingerprinting,
stop and search, datamining
analytics and the national
DNA database can be pivotal in
the identification and successful
prosecution of dangerous individuals
or the organisational streamlining
of policing operations.
However, if they are employed
with only technical reasoning (an
all-too-common scenario), these
measures can produce undesirable
social outcomes. Criminological
research on CCTV operation, for
example, has shown that nonwhite
groups are overrepresented
in targeted surveillances.
Moreover, an overreliance on
technology and “remote policing”
procedures can function to
reduce or undermine interactional
and reassurance policing in
multi-cultural communities, producing
relations lacking in trust.
Expensive technological measures
all too often displace successful
rehabilitative programmes
and community initiatives. Technology
does not always deliver
the utopian solutions promised
and systems are often poorly
managed, regulated, utilised and
at odds with the operational culture
and social relations they are
embedded within.
City University London now
offers the world’s first MA degree
in Surveillance Studies to provide
a unique and stimulating platform
for critical empirical research,
for political engagement
and for scholarly discussion of
the above themes.
Beginning in September 2009,
the course is a globally-orientated
programme that explores
topics relating to surveillance
growth, theory, regulation, ethics
and futures. It is ideally suited for
those wishing to engage with
cutting-edge theoretical developments
in the social sciences, critical
research issues and key policy
trends. The overall objective of the
MA degree is to equip participants – be they practitioners or
activists – with the theoretical
tools required to analytically
comprehend the diverse ways in
which surveillance is produced,
operationalised and experienced
in everyday life.
In a world of pervasive surveillance,
where our everyday
lives are touched and ordered by
largely invisible gazes and
processes – or where our vocational
role might be to operate or
orientate a particular surveillance
technology – never has there
been a better time to learn about
this phenomenon and explore the
truths behind its place in the
heart of societal organisation.
To find out more about the course
please visit: www.city.ac.uk/sociology/surveillance or email:
socscipg@city.ac.uk or contact
Postgraduate Admissions on
020 7040 8512. Top Back to Training Home |
