Sociological and Marxist Analysis of Surveillance in the Process Leading to Data Surveillance

Year 2022, Issue: 40, 323 - 339, 30.06.2022

Eyüp Al

https://doi.org/10.17829/turcom.1051028

Abstract

The aim of this study is to expose data surveillance to sociological and Marxist analysis by revealing different stages of surveillance from past to present. Social outcomes of surveillance with sociological analysis, economic and political reasons of surveillance with Marxist analysis are discussed. However, it is claimed that the modern structure of surveillance has been opened to discussion, and its digitalization and fluidization have given birth to data surveillance as a new surveillance and control form. Therefore, the classical surveillance conditions defined around Bentham’s idea of “Panopticon” and Foucault’s texts have changed a lot. Since this change is not only structural, the stages of the surveillance mechanism and its aims in the historical process are open to discussion. In the contemporary period, surveillance has also transformed at a point where speed and flexibility determine all kinds of everyday actions. In order to understand this transformation, this article examines how surveillance reaches a more fluid and mobile form, and the actions performed in digital environments are followed on the data axis instead of tracking the body. As a result, it is concluded that the forms of surveillance move away from oppression, individuals are included in surveillance voluntarily, data surveillance is used for economic and political interests, and data provides much more efficient, individual and instant information without any time and place limits.

Keywords

Panopticon, Surveillance, Information Technologies, Data Surveillance, Sociological and Marxist Analysis

Veri Gözetimine Giden Süreçte Gözetimin Sosyolojik ve Marksist Analizi

Abstract

Bu çalışmanın amacı geçmişten günümüze gözetimin değişik safhalarını ortaya koyarak veri gözetimini sosyolojik ve Marksist analize tabi tutmaktır. Sosyolojik analiz ile gözetimin sosyal çıktıları, Marksist analiz ile gözetimin ekonomik ve politik nedenleri ele alınmaktadır. Bununla birlikte gözetimin çağdaş yapılanması tartışmaya açılarak dijitalleşmesinin ve akışkan bir hal almasının yeni bir gözetleme ve denetleme biçimi olarak veri gözetimini doğurduğu iddia edilmektedir. Dolaysıyla Bentham’ın “Panoptikon” fikri ile Foucault’nun metinleri etrafında tanımlanan klasik gözetleme koşulları fazlasıyla değişmiştir. Bu değişim sadece yapısal olmadığı için gözetim mekanizmasının ve amaçlarının tarihsel süreçte hangi aşamalardan geçtiği tartışmaya açılmaktadır. Çağdaş dönemde hızın ve esnekliğin her türlü gündelik eylemi belirlediği bir noktada gözetim de dönüşmektedir. Bu dönüşümü anlayabilmek için makalede gözetimin nasıl daha akışkan ve hareketli bir forma ulaştığı, beden yerine dijital ortamlardaki eylemlerin takibinin veri ekseninde gerçekleştirildiği incelenmektedir. Sonuç olarak gözetleme biçimlerinin baskıdan uzaklaştığı, bireylerin gönüllü olarak gözetime dahil edildiği, veri gözetiminin ekonomik ve politik çıkarlar için kullanıldığı, verinin herhangi bir zaman ve mekân sınırına takılmaksızın çok daha verimli, bireysel ve anlık enformasyon sunduğu görülmektedir.

Keywords

Panoptikon, Gözetim, Enformasyon Teknolojileri, Veri Gözetimi, Sosyolojik ve Marksist Analiz

References

• Andrejevic, M. (2007). Surveillance in the digital enclosure. The Communication Review, 10(4), 295-317. Andrejevic, M., & Gates, K. (2014). Big data surveillance: Introduction. Surveillance & Society, 12(2), 185-196. Bauman, Z. (1998). Globalization. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Bauman, Z., & Lyon, D. (2013). Liquid surveillance. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Bentham, J. (2017). Panopticon or the inspection house. Whithorn: Anodos Books.
• Berger, A. A. (1991). Media analysis techniques. California: Sage Publications.
• Chul Han, B. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technologies of power. London: Verso.
• Clarke, R. (1988). Information technology and dataveillance. Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, 31(5), 498-512.
• Clarke, R. (2019). Risks inherent in the digital surveillance economy: A research agenda. Journal of Information Technology, 34(1), 59-80.
• Clarke, R. (2021). Dataveillance. Retreived November, 05, 2021 from http://www.rogerclarke.com/DV/#SurvD Clarke, R., & Greenleaf, G. (2017). Dataveillance regulation: A research framework. UNSW Law Research Paper, 17-84.
• Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. California: Stanford University Press. Dandeker, C. (1990). Surveillance, power and modernity: Bureaucracy and discipline from 1700 to the resentday. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Foucault, M. (1983). The subject and power. In H. L. Dreyfus, & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics (pp. 208-226). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage Books.
• Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be defended: Lectures at the Collège De France, 1975-76. New York: Picador. Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory,population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. New York:Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fuchs, C. (2011). New media, web 2.0 and surveillance. Sociology Compass, 5(2), 134-147.
• Fuchs, C., Boersma, K., Albrechtslund, A., & Sandoval, M. (2012). Internet and surveillance: The challenges of web 2.0 and social media. London: Routledge.
• Gandy, O. H. (2021). The panoptic sort: A political economy of personal information. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Giddens, A. (1985). The nation-state and violence: Volume two of a contemporary critique of historical materialism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Giddens, A. (1991). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Giddens, A. (1995). A contemporary critique of historical materialism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Harari, Y. N. (2016). Homo deus: A brief history of tomorrow. UK: Signal Books.
• Los, M. (2004). The technologies of total domination. Surveillance & Society, 2(1), 15-38.
• Lyon, D. (1994). The electronic eye: The rise of surveillance society. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lyon, D. (2001). Surveillance society: Monitoring everyday life. Buckingham: Open University Press.
• Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, snowden, and big data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1(2), 1-13.
• Marx, G. T. (1985). The surveillance society: The threat of 1984-style techniques. The Futurist, 21-26. Marx, G. T. (1988). Undercover: Police surveillance in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.16 Sociological and Marxist Analysis of Surveillance in the Process Leading to Data Surveillance
• Marx, G. T. (2002). What’s new about the “new surveillance”? Classifying for change and continuity. Surveillance & Society, 1(1), 8-29.
• Mathiesen, T. (1997). The viewer society: Michel Foucault’s ‘panopticon’ revisited. Theoretical Criminology, 1(2), 215-234.
• Mattelart, A. (2010). The globalization of surveillance. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Pimenta, E. D. (2010). Low power society. Retrieved November, 15, 2021 from https://www.emanuelpimenta. net/ebooks/archives/lowpower/EMANUEL%20PIMENTA%20low%20power%202010%20third%20 edition%20US.pdf
• Poster, M. (1990). The mode of information: Poststructuralism and social context. Cambridge: Polity Press.
• Poster, M. (1996). Databases as discourse, or electronic interpellations. In P. Heelas, S. Lash, & P. Morris (Eds.),Detraditionalization (pp. 277-293). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
• Postman, N. (2006). Amusing ourselves to death. London: Penguin Books.
• Rosen, J. (2004). The naked crowd: Reclaiming security and freedom in an anxious age. New York: Random House.
• Sennett, R. (2006). The culture of the new capitalism. London: Yale University Press.
• Sprague, R. D. (2007). From taylorism to the omnipticon: Expanding employee surveillance beyond the workplace. Journal of Computer & Information Law, 25(1), 1-35.
• Trottier, D. (2016). Social media as surveillance: Rethinking visibility in a converging world. London: Routledge.
• Van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2-14.
• Webster, F., & Robins, K. (1993). I’ll be watching you’: Comment on sewell and wilkinson. Sociology, 27(2), 243-252.
• Wood, D. (2003). Foucault and panopticism revisited. Surveillance & Society, 1(3), 234-239. Zuboff, Z. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism. New York: Public Affairs.