By G.T. Marx
We are at any moment those who separateIn its current state the sociological subfield of surveillance studies reminds me of the joke that began an editorial letter of rejection I received as a beginning scholar:
the connected or connect the separate.—Georg Simmel
A poor man saves and finally manages to buy his first suit of which he is very proud. A rich relative sees him on the street wearing it and says, "that's nice material, have you thought of having a suit made from it?"The previous reviews suggest the richness and variety of this budding field. There is indeed something happening here! Yet, in calling for better conceptualization the reviewers would no doubt agree with song writer Stephen Sills that "what it is ain't exactly clear." I will elaborate a bit on this and, consistent with brother Georg's observation above, suggest some ways of hopefully making it clearer.
Not long ago, one could fit all of those interested in social studies of surveillance into a phone booth –that possibility is gone (along with the phone booth). David Lyon (forthcoming), in a comprehensive overview, observes "…surveillance studies started to emerge as a coherent sub-disciplinary field towards the end of the twentieth century." As both scholar and organizer, Lyon has played a major role in this beginning.
Now there is a vibrant and growing international network of scholars interested in surveillance questions. (Monaghan 2006) There are new journals, special issues of, and many articles in, traditional journals and frequent conferences. 1 Between 1960-69 Sociological Abstracts listed just 6 articles with the word "surveillance". Between 1990-99, 563 articles were listed and if current trends continue, there will be well over 1000 articles for the decade ending 2009. In 2005-06 alone, five significant edited sociological books were published with scores of contributors (Zuriek and Salter 2005, Lace 2005, Haggerty and Ericson 2006, Lyon 2006, Monahan 2006), and many more monographs and edited volumes are on the way. Yet a boom in research does not necessarily mean an equivalent boon.
As in that other famous case, it is premature to conclude "mission accomplished", let alone even consensually identified. This particularly applies to the sociologically tinged versions of the field. In contrast, studies of surveillance from law, economics and geography suggest more coherent disciplinary subfields. 2 The increasing number of surveillance scholars in sociology and related fields such as communications, criminology and cultural studies speaks to the currency of the field.
The field is strongest in its' historical and macro accounts of the emergence and changes of surveillance in modern institutions and in offering an abundance of nominal (if rarely operationalized) concepts. 3 Terms such as surveillance, 4 social control, privacy, anonymity, secrecy and confidentiality tend to be used without precise (or any) definition and are generally not logically linked. There are also case studies, usually at one place and time, involving only one technology and often with a policy evaluation (particularly of CCTV) component. 5
To marketing, law enforcement and national security critics, sociological surveillance research tends to be seen as coming from left field (in both senses). Surveillance writing often shows sympathy for underdogs and suspicion of overdogs, indignation over flagrant violations and concern for the future of personal dignity, equality and democracy. Yet beyond the newsworthy horror stories, 6 we have little quantitative data on the frequency and correlates of abuses or trend data on the individual's overall ability to control personal information. Replicable empirical research and hypothesis testing on contemporary forms lags, (although surprisingly, perhaps less so in Europe than in North America).
For the systematic, comparative, context and empirically focused social analyst, much of the current work, while often elegantly phrased, exploratory 7 and useful in offering background knowledge, raising issues and sounding alarms, remains conceptually undernourished, non-cumulative and non-explanatory (at least in being conventionally falsifiable) and is either unduly abstract and broad, or too descriptive and narrow.
Consider for example the nominal concepts noted in footnote 3. These are each part of the story about the Hindu elephant whose varied, and sometimes conflicting, elements can be hazily seen through the pixilated shadows and fog of the present. However for systematic empirical assessment, naming names is not enough. We need to break down the named into their multi-dimensional components, locate connections among seemingly disparate phenomena and use a more variegated conceptual framework in our data collection and analysis.
Terms such as "the new surveillance" and "surveillance society" (Marx 1985 a,b), which I used to label emerging trends illustrates this problem. These general terms served well in effecting broader climates of public opinion and in calling attention to the issues. 8 Yet we need to get beyond buzzwords and the simple, "just say 'yes' or 'no' Professor" responses desired by the media. In reflecting on just what is new, I identify 27 dimensions by which any surveillance means can be contrasted. I use this as the bases for contrasting the new surveillance with traditional surveillance. 9 (Marx 2004)
A further weakness of the field involves omission. Most studies deal with contexts of conflict, domination and control involving surveillance agents and organizations (almost all of the books chosen for review in this symposium). The extensive use of surveillance in other settings for goals involving protection, management, documentation, strategic planning, ritual or entertainment is ignored. Goals are too often simply assumed. Their frequent lack of clarity and their multiplicity are ignored. 10
The very word surveillance evokes images of conflict spies skulking in the shadows, rather than of cooperation with reassuring life guards or parents in the sunshine. Surveillance as a fundamental social process is about much more than modernism, capitalism, bureaucracy, computer technology and the aftermaths of 9/11, however important those are. A zero-sum, social control, conflict game involving the unilateral, effective and unchallenged power of the hegemons does not define the universe.
Surveillance subjects and uses by individuals (e.g., in a familial contexts or by voyeurs) are neglected, as is the interaction between agents and subjects. 11 Surveillance culture, which so envelops and defines popular consciousness, also tends to be under-studied. 12
The sum of sociological surveillance studies is unfortunately not yet greater than the individual parts.
To take topics studied by the reviewers, it is not initially apparent how research on undercover police, passports (Torpey 2000), political repression (Cunningham 2003), work monitoring (Zureik 2003), mobile telephony (Lyon 2006), constitute a field, let alone studies of welfare eligibility (Gilliom 2001), anonymity (Frankel and Teich 1999, bots (Kerr 2004), the internet and political polls (Howard et al 2005), e-government (Ogura 2006), cardiac patients (Dubbeld 2006), abandoned DNA (Joh 2006) or reality television (Andrejevic 2004). With respect to theory and method, established fields of political sociology, stratification, organizations, social psychology, deviance and social control, science, technology and society and social problems are more helpful than an autonomous surveillance subfield.
A field needs greater agreement (or well articulated disagreements) on what
the central questions and basic concepts are, on what it is that we know empirically
and what needs to known, and on how the empirically documented or documentable can be ordered and explained, let alone some ability to predict the conditions under which future developments are to be expected. Reaching these objectives should be the next steps for the field.
The multi-dimensional nature of personal information and the extensive contextual and situational variation related to this are often found within dynamic settings of social conflict. This rich brew prevents reaching any simple conclusions about how crossing or failing to cross personal informational borders will, or should, be explained and judged. Such complexity may serve us well when it introduces humility and qualification, but not if it immobilizes. An approach that specifies the contingent factors offers us a situational, rather than an absolutist approach. A compass is not a map, but it is better than being lost without one.
Towards A Field Definition
One Marx manifesto every couple of centuries is probably sufficient, although that should not be the case for Marx jokes. Nonetheless, let me offer, in greatly telegraphed form, one way of approaching the new surveillance for the collection of personal information. This approach is tied firmly to our discipline and its historical concerns from Marx, Durkheim, Weber and Simmel and more recent concerns such as those expressed by Shils, Nisbet, Merton and Goffman. It takes systematic account of the variation whose causes, processes and consequence need to be understood.
I suggest a situational or contextual approach which, while not denying some commonalities across surveillance behavior, emphasizes patterned differences. Amidst the sweeping claims (whether of dystopians, utopians, ideologues, single case study over-generalizers, or one trick pony theoretical reductionists), we need to specify. Conclusions, whether explanatory or evaluative, require identifying the dimensions by which the richness of the empirical world can be parsed into dissimilar or fused into similar analytic forms that are systematically studied. To paraphrase a country and western song, "there is too much talk [aka meta-theory] and not enough research".
Among key elements in this approach are:
Central questions within a normative approach are: what are the rules governing the protection and revelation of information, how are they created, what are their consequences and how should they be judged? Who has access to personal information and under what conditions? How do factors such as the type of physical, temporal and cultural border, the type of relationship among actors, the roles played, the type of information involved, the form of its presentation and the characteristics of the means used and the goals sought effect rules about information and the distribution of various surveillance forms? 15 What does surveillance focus on—individuals, groups, organizations, or environments? And, once focused, what does it look for (e.g, rule compliance, eligibility, wanted persons, purity, networks, location) and what actions, if any flow from the activity? How are results assessed, where are the lines drawn, how valid are the instruments used, both in general and as applied in a given context?
What factors condition varying connections between the rules and actual behavior? How do normatively sanctioned and coercively supported data extractions (or data protections) differ from softer, seemingly voluntary (and often seductively elicited) revelations (or protections—e.g., industry favoring self-regulation)? How is information treated once it has been gathered (e.g., security, repurposing, alteration, retention and destruction)?
Borders are central factors for understanding surveillance. They of course may include or exclude as they facilitate or restrict the flow of information, persons, goods, resources and opportunities (Zuriek and Salter 2006, Andreas and Nadelmann 2006). The literal and symbolic role of border surveillants as guardians, gate keepers, spotters, cullers and sorters needs to be better understood, as well as subject responses.
A question I have been concerned with is under what conditions do individuals feel that a personal border has been wrongly crossed, or that there has been a failure in not crossing a personal border re the collection of information? The latter is particularly interesting and neglected, but see Etzioni (1999) and Allen (2003). Re the former I hypothesize that important correlates of a sense of injustice are non-consensual crossing a border—physical (whether a wall, skin or disaggregation), temporal, or social, presumed to be protective of information, or recording such information. (Marx 1999)
Directionality can also be considered. Most attention is on taking information from the person. But as with Orwell's telescreeen this can be joined (and also needs to be contrasted with) impositions upon the person –whether sound, images, smells or unwanted messages (e.g., much telemarketing and spam). These of course may be joined as when monitoring of internet behavior leads to receipt of spam.
Privacy and publicity are major concepts here as they form polar ends of a continuum involving rules about withholding and disclosing, and seeking or not seeking, information. Depending on the context, social roles and culture, individuals or groups may be required, find it optional, or be prohibited from engaging in these activities, whether as subjects or agents of surveillance and communication.
This approach precludes the automatic equation of surveillance with privacy invasion. Surveillance can invade privacy or protect it. Re the latter, consider authentication systems that restrict access to data or that offer protection from id theft (or the better term identity fraud proposed by Pontell (2003). This distinction also avoids the frequent confusion of the private and the public as adjectives describing the actual empirical status of information (e.g., the Pentagon papers became public or failure of a government official to file a required disclosure statement means that the information remains private) apart from formal proscriptions or prescriptions.
Rules are at the heart of publicity and privacy. When the rules specify that information is not to be available to others (whether the restriction is on the surveillance agent not to discover or less often, on the subject not to reveal or on the means) we can speak of privacy norms.
When the rules specify that the information must be revealed by the subject or sought by the agent and that particular means are to be used, we can speak of publicity norms. The subject has an obligation to reveal and/or the agent has an obligation to discover and to report what is discovered. 16 With publicity norms there is no right to privacy that tells the agent not to seek information, nor that gives the subject discretion regarding revelation.
The conditions for such reporting (whether mandatory revelation by the subject or discovery by the agent) involve important variables such as who is to be told. The audience for mandatory revelation/discovery and communication can vary from a few persons entitled to know (as with buyers and sellers bound by a contract or the reporting of signs of possible child abuse by teachers to social welfare officials), to the public at large (as with conflict of interest statements for those in public office).
A sociology of information approach emphasizing norms offers a way to connect and contrast the highly varied topics studied by surveillance scholars. David Cunningham's welcome call for dissagregation is joined by aggregation. The logic of joining freedom of information and right to know issues with the right to control personal information can be seen in having a single agency responsible for these, as with some European and Canadian commissions (Flahterty 1989, Bennett and Raab 2003). 17
Surveillance Structures and Processes
Surveillance can be further analyzed by identifying some basic structures and processes Organizational surveillance is distinct from the non-organizational surveillance carried about by individuals. The internal constituency surveillance found in organizations (in its most extreme form in total institutions (Goffman 1961) contrasts with external constituency surveillance present when those who are watched have some patterned contact with the organization (e.g., as customers, patients, malefactors or citizens). Note also external non-member constituency surveillance in which organizations monitor their broader environment in watching other organizations, individuals and social trends.
Beyond organizational forms, consider personal surveillance in which an individual watches another individual. Here we can differentiate role relationship surveillance as with family members from non-role relationship surveillance as with the voyeur whose watching is unconnected to a legitimate role. 18
With respect to the roles played we can identify the surveillance agent (watcher/observer/seeker). The person about whom information is sought is a surveillance subject. All persons of course play both roles, although hardly in the same form or degree. This changes depending on the context and over the life cycle. The roles are sometimes blurred and may overlap.
The surveillance function may be central to the role (detectives, spies, investigative reporters and even some sociologists) 19 or peripheral (e.g., check-out clerks who are trained to look for shop lifters, dentists who look for signs of child abuse). A distinction rich with empirical and ethical implications is whether the situation involves those who are a party to the generation and collection of data (direct participants) or instead involves third parties.
Surveillance can also be analyzed with respect to whether it is non-reciprocal or reciprocal. Surveillance that is reciprocal may be asymmetrical or symmetrical. Related to this is the need to contrast contexts of cooperation where goals overlap or are shared, as against those where agents and subjects are in conflict. Consider also agent-initiated surveillance vs. subject-initiated surveillance.
In the books reviewed by Cunningham for example we see governmental organizations engaged in non-reciprocal, asymmetrical, conflictual, agent initiated forms.
Rather than being only static and fixed, surveillance also needs to be viewed as a fluid process involving interaction and strategic calculations over time
Rather than being static and fixed at one point in time, surveillance needs to be viewed as a fluid, ongoing process involving interaction and strategic calculations over time. Among surveillance processes are efforts to create the myth of surveillance, surveillance creep, gallop and contraction and surveillance commodification. Behavioral techniques of neutralization –strategic moves by which subjects of surveillance seek to subvert the collection of personal information can be noted. Among forms that can be observed are: direct refusal, discovery, avoidance, switching, distorting, counter-surveillance, cooperation, blocking and masking. Marx (2003)
Surveillance practices are shaped by manners, organizational policies and laws and by available technologies and counter-technologies. These draw on a number of background value principles and tacit assumptions about the empirical world.. Using criteria such as the nature of the goals, the procedure for creating a surveillance practice, minimization, consideration of alternatives, reciprocity, data protection and security and implications for democratic values, I suggest 20 questions to be asked about any surveillance activity. (Marx 2005) The more these can be answered in a way affirming the underlying values, the more legitimate the surveillance is likely to be.
In anxious, media saturated times we must be especially attentive to public rhetoric that so effortlessly passes for profundity. 20 Consider the stock line that everything changed after 9/11 and we must therefore be prepared to tradeoff liberty or privacy for security. Perhaps. That conclusion should only be reached after careful analysis indicating 1) that the threat has been accurately portrayed 2) that the tradeoff is genuine i.e., that the sacrifice will work 3) it is morally justified and involves an appropriate prioritization of values (i.e., whatever is being traded off is of less worth than what is presumed to be gained) and 4) as Torin Monahan (2006) and his colleagues suggest, tradeoff talk does not lead us to ignore consequences for other important social values such as fairness, equality and personal dignity, let along technologies that bite back. (Tenner 1996)
Social research attentive to empirical and moral complexity may move us closer to the enlightenment promise of our discipline and leave in the realm of fiction, Brecht's observation that the person who smiles is the one who has not yet heard the bad news.
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Notes
With respect to the free lunch activity of naming, a sampling: the gaze, (Foucault 1977); surveillance society, the new surveillance and maximum security society (Marx 1985 a, b; dossier society ( Laudon 1986); dataveillance (Clarke 1988); super-panopticon, (Poster 1990); l'anamorphose de l'etat-nation (Palida 1992); panoptic sort (Gandy 1993); Waever, 1995); synopticon, (Mathiesen 1997); securitization (Ericson and Haggerty 1997); telematic society (Bogard 1996); techno-policing, (Nogala 1995) Deleuze 199_, Haggerty and Ericson 2000); information empire (Hardt and Negri 2000); post-panopticon, (Boyne 2000); glass cage, (Gabriel 2004); ban-opticon, (Bigo 2006); high policing, (Brodeur and Lehman-Langlois 2006); ubiquitous computing, (Greenfield 2006); ambient intelligence (Friedenwald et al 2006) ); safe society (Lyon, forthcoming).
The Latin roots are sur = super, vidre = to look and vigilare = to keep watch. Super-watching conveys an important strand, but is awkward. For those uncomfortable with to surveil, the English term to survey which can involve either a general overview, or a critical inspection is the best we have. One can also play with prepositions –viewing and contrasting surveillance as looking over, under, above, below, beyond, back, out and for, as these apply to both agents and subjects and to position, time and goals.. In an interesting ethno-table turn, Mann et al (2003) labels his use of videocams to record the behavior of the more powerful sous-surveillance. It is that not only because it is done by those presumably socially below, but also because in probing underneath it may reveal taken for granted social worlds.
Among some of the most important characteristics of the new surveillance: extends the senses, low visibility, involuntary, remote, lesser cost, multiple indicators, strategic, integrated, automated, real time data flows, attention to systems and networks as well as individuals, routinization of surveillance into everyday life, immediate links between data collection and action and emphasis on predicting the future and preventing some forms of it. When not hidden altogether, the new information gathering seeks to be soft, relatively non-invasive, unnoticeable and to avoid direct coercion. (Marx 2006)
An alternative, but compatible, approach views surveillance as consisting of four elements; representation, meaning, manipulation and intermediation which generate “surveillance domains'. (Ball 2002)
A related concept, surveillance slack, can be used to contrast time periods, cultures and contexts with respect to the degree of slack (if any) between the potential for a fully unleashed technology and the extent and form of its actual application Using this measure suggests that we live in relatively benign times and that things may in one sense be getting better all the time, as the potential power of the technology expands much more rapidly than its institutionalization.
Whether because of the almost simultaneous development of means of neutralizing surveillance (e.g., encryption) and the growth of legal and policy restrictions on asking certain kinds of questions some police, security and medical officials and employers are concerned that in particular contexts there is now too much protection of personal information.
The ironies can be striking. In an epilogue to his study of government welfare surveillance (Gilliom 2001) reports on his serendipitous encounter with some involuntary participant observation data, as he became the subject of unwarranted state surveillance. See also Kemple and Huey 2006.
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One way of organizing surveillance studies is as part of a broader field of the sociology of information. A major area within that involves the rules about information in general, and personal information, in particular. 14 The nine elements listed above exist within a normative environment in which expectations, policies and laws set conditions around which behavior flows. This approach yields a number of hypotheses about surveillance behavior and the patterning of normative expectations regarding the accessibility and inaccessibility of information. (Marx and Muschert, forthcoming)
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