Evaluating the Impact of Online Social Networking on Surveillance Culture

Online networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram are being used immensely as of late. Their prevalence gives new chances for information accumulation by the state and privately owned businesses, which calls for an increase in primary and hypothetical research on web-based networking media surveillance. The terms online networking and social media were created to portray the correspondence, group, and cooperative characteristics of websites, such as Blogger, social network websites such as Facebook and video facilitating stages such as YouTube. Regardless of the fact that there has been a considerable measure of build up about these terms, principally centred around how they provide platforms for new business and promoting opportunities on the web, there are societal impacts of these innovations that should be researched (Ellis et al, 2013). This essay will analyse current theory regarding the rising impact of social media on surveillance culture and discuss the frighteningly accurate foretelling’s of theorists whose work pre dates the social media revolution. Ultimately, displaying the argument that social media has given surveillance culture a platform to manifest and grow and that this ultimately changes the behaviour of the affected generations.

Numerous
current meanings of surveillance define a process of “data accumulation and
handling, and then again procedures of forming practices (controlling,
overseeing, administering, managing, affecting or directing practices)” (Fuchs
2011, p. 41). Societal
surveillance includes the accumulation, stockpiling, preparing, and evaluation
of information about people or groups of people by a performing artist to
propel the latter’s objectives. Foucault (1997) recognises that knowledge is
power and in order to gain and maintain power institutions use surveillance.
Through methods such as data collecting, governments can turn something as
complex as human behaviour into chunks of data. Monitoring people through
numbers in order to maintain social order. However, throughout this essay
surveillance culture will be defined through theorists such as Deleuze (1992)
and Haggerty & Ericson (2000) because in their respective researches there
is an understanding that surveillance is not just limited to institutions as
Foucault (1997) suggests. In fact, surveillance is more networked now; as
technology and globalisation has advanced people have become freer moving and
have bigger networks. This has caused a power shift in surveillance that means
that people are now more than ever able to monitor their peers’ behaviours.
This is a culture of surveillance because it has grown to such a large scale
that people have become reliant on it, particularly in the example of online
social network because now huge chucks of our personal and social life are
online and to step out of this leaves us ostracised.

Online networking
can be utilised as a successful apparatus for socialisation. Numerous
individuals want to use new types of online networking sites keeping in mind
the end goal to be included in this new format of community. It is essential to
understand the criticalness of the connection between organisations and the public.
Extraordinary consideration ought to be paid to the way technology includes
people in surveillance culture because their impression of the public is as an initial
form of surveillance (Dinev et al, 2008). Subsequently, social media allows for
effortless control of the participants. As recent research suggests, the features of online
networking can influence young people. Anderson (2009) highlights the vast
amount of data that becomes available to researchers through the new field of
social media, particularly in relation to violence, and how this is used to
inform policy making. This clearly indicates the effect social media has had on
surveillance culture in what could be seen as both a positive and negative
manner. To expand, it could be thought that a new platform in which data can be
retrieved without knowledge of the participants often makes for richer and more
reliable findings, which could be a possible benefit to policy making. However,
this essay will show that because this data is often taken from youths and
utilised by those in power (Anderson, 2009), it means that the younger
generation have no way of informing policy that directly affects them and their
lifestyles. With this in mind, social media clearly provides a space for
surveillance culture to overlook a whole generation and calls for more debate
in issues such as protection and privacy.

The issue of
surveillance and privacy in the online networking world is talked broadly about
in scientific studies. Teenagers may view surveillance on social networking
both in a positive and negative attitude (Stuart and Levine, 2017). However, is
imperative to recognise that surveillance online is not merely two-fold, as
advertising for afore mentioned sites incorrectly suggest, interacting online
is not just you being surveilled by your networked connections and vice versa.
It is on the other hand, a method for large-scale organisations to surveil the
public. It is notable that following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001;
government surveillance has expanded particularly in the United States. These
measures incorporate an enthusiasm for social networking online (Marks, 2006).
Government enthusiasm for online networking is straightforward, to profile
possible offenders and terrorists, it is essential to consolidate an extensive
variety of data about individuals. This data incorporates social relations, shared
exercises, friend networks, and individual information about political
perspectives, religious convictions, sexual preferences, and inclinations
concerning regular day-to-day routines. Therefore, social media has clearly
fuelled surveillance culture by providing an opportunity for data to be easily
and unknowingly collected and manipulated accordingly.

The consequences for actions on social media,
particularly in younger people are not always understood. For instance, the
transferring of their private data to social media websites and the outcomes
might be adverse. In a classroom study, Barnes (2006) highlighted that
attitudes towards social media in youths show that they do not feel a
connection between what they post online and real world consequences and view
online networking as a separate diversion from the real world. Barnes (2006)
demonstrates the connection between web-based social networking and youths in a
way, which highlights the negative impacts of online networking. As well as
this, this study highlights the lack of education around surveillance culture
on social media that in turn, gives it a bigger platform to go unnoticed; if
people do not expect their data to be misused they are unlikely to refrain from
giving it up.

Andrejevec (2002) indicates the way that the
surveillance issues concerning online networking usage cannot be taken as an absence
of privacy for the users because the data is already available to be used by
the organisations that do. However, Barnes (2006) highlights that surveillance
culture is infringing on privacy because the lack of education around the
privacy rights of these sights allow these organisations some degree of
autonomy. Therefore, highlighting the lack of control placed on surveillance
culture and the lack of control the public having from being utilised by it.

Social media networking can carry a hint of
private correspondence with it because of its situational and ordinary
character, yet intervened public platforms are not private. This situation is a
focal piece of the discourse concerning surveillance and it is particularly
evident regarding accessible data on social media. Most network websites request
that their clients give personal details; this data is requested during social
network correspondence stages. As such, the required data to profile individuals
is not something “concealed that must be revealed or recovered utilising fancy
equipment, human operators and such” (Heidegger 1977, p. 6). Individuals themselves are making this data
public, free for everyone to access and are therefore fuelling surveillance
culture.

Online social
communication can have genuine adverse outcomes and has, in this way, offered
an open door for various worries from moral frenzies to paranoid fears (Greenop,
2007). This has prompted talks of security and education; youths clearly should
be given training on implicit rules concerning online exercises to figure out
how to secure their selves. Without a doubt, numerous threats prowl in the world
of social networking, incorporating possible security intrusion, misuse of
equity given false data and, not slightest, the threat of predators who feel
the need to hurt youngsters. These threats are genuine and ought to be dealt
with. But, critics assert that the training and the security discourse is
additionally an ethical frenzy (Fisher and Lyytinen, 2016).  

Greenop’s (2007)
mention of paranoia highlights how surveillance culture, particularly since the
social media age is changing what it means to be human. Foucault highlights
that the idea of what it means to be human is a recent term and is one that is
changing drastically, it is worth noting that Foucault was not writing at a
time where social media had reached its peak but the growth in a
technology-dependant culture was already apparent.  A rising dependence on technology is directly
link with mental health issues and the rise of a more neurotic population.
Twenge and Campbell (2009) argue that culture in American culture has shifted
from focusing on community to money and the results mean that a higher number
of younger people are likely to experience poor mental health. Furedi (2006)
claims that a neurotic population is desired by the state and that fear levels
are being deliberately raised in order to create anxiousness, which in turn, makes
people easier to control. To expand, dependence on social media and technology
as a whole could arguably be making the population more complacent in
surveillance. Terms such as “you have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to
hide” are often used as a way of normalising mass surveillance and a highly
technologically dependant community will be more neurotic and anxious and
therefore easier to surveil.

Haggerty and Ericson (2000) emphasise that surveillance culture is dependant on the rise of networked communities, with so many people on social media it becomes easy for everyone to surveil each other and therefore surveillance is not only a tool of large scale institutions but common practice for everyone. There are contending policy, media, and social talks stating that women ought to keep up their privacy within their online presence, yet all the while should openly exhibit themselves online in a specific, gendered way; either as mindful or as popular (Ball et al, 2009). In the meantime, “as self- showing as private and capable, it is normal for females to increase social capital from freely self-displaying as socially acknowledged, which includes uploading photographs and having numerous online contacts – immediately contrary to the desires of self- restriction and privacy” (Ball et al 2009, p. 356). These contradictory desires are authorised by social surveillance, where females who do not give in to the societal pressure receive negative judgment or even provocation from other users on social media (Bailey, 2013). It is therefore clear that social media as a way of enforcing behavioural norms has impacted surveillance culture.

Taking into
consideration the discourse with regards to online interpersonal networking, a
conventional and rather contrary origination of surveillance is rendered
obsolete. If surveillance is related to the intrusion of one’s privacy and is predominately
a method of discipline (Foucault, 1997). By this definition surveillance is
enforced by structures, for example, the Panopticon. The Panopticon is a
metaphor for surveillance in which the disciplined are watched at all times and
cannot see the watcher. This instils a sense of fear and theoretically enforces
order. However, the issue is that it does not appear to sufficiently portray
the desire to be surveilled with regards to online networking via social media
(Lyon 2006; McGrath 2004).  Social media
has impacted surveillance culture in such a way that it has became
participatory and something to be desired, as long as the perception of
yourself you present is desirable. The ethical frenzies, paranoid fears, and
the challenges in comprehending why individuals really would need to
participate in online social communication all mirror this tragic view on
surveillance. It is the reason behind the talks of privacy and instruction and
also for the possibility that clients are either performing risk examinations
before establishing a profile on the social media website or just are not aware
of enough regarding the prowling threats of surveillance.

The visual illustration of
surveillance offered by the Panopticon infers a spatial chain of command where
the observer is situated over the one being observed. However, this might not
be taken as surveillance being fundamentally a power dynamic in which the
observer is in control of the observed. In fact, surveillance can be viewed as
a levelled relationship even for the individual under surveillance, either through
opposition (McGrath, 2004) or as exhibitionism (Koskela, 2004). Furthermore, surveillance
can be conducted by both the watcher and watched, as depicted by Andrejevic
(2005) who has presented the idea of horizontal surveillance. Despite the fact
that Andrejevic does not explicitly build the association, horizontal
surveillance appears to be a helpful idea to shed light on specific parts of social
media as everyone who is being surveilled is also surveilling others.

Counter arguments in regards to surveillance culture could see it as
enabling, as the observing encourage better methods of building personality,
meeting companions and partners, along with associating with people outside of
your social circle. This progresses the part played by the client from
uninvolved to dynamic, given that surveillance in this setting provides some
autonomy to the user. Online media communication in this way represents
surveillance, “as a shared, enabling and subjectivity formulating exercise – is
in a general sense quite social” (Solove 2007, p. 745). The act of online interpersonal interaction
can be viewed as enabling, as it is an approach to connect with other
individuals and develop connections deliberately. However, it is critical to not
consequently accept that the practice of networking, which these sites depend
on, is just a product for exchanging. It is in fact a form of surveillance
culture that extends on Deleuze’s (1992) belief that surveillance is no longer
about monitoring those separate to us but a method of collecting data from the
everyday and social media is a perfect way of gathering this.

To conclude, this essay has demonstrated an understanding of
surveillance culture is an advancement of surveillance in which being
surveilled has become participatory. This is due to human beings becoming
increasing technology-dependant. Particularly through the example of social
media the impact of surveillance culture has been explored. Firstly as a
readily available source of data which is used to both monitor and adapt the
behaviours of a society by institutions and secondly as a way of encouraging participatory
surveillance in turn, causing a complacent attitude towards surveillance
cultural. The impact of social media was also shown to deeply affect human
behaviour in general, creating a more neurotic and anxious population, which as
explained by Furedi (2006), makes people easier to control and in turn, makes
the aims of surveillance culture easier to accomplish.

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