The Culture of Surveillance : Watching as a Way of Life

From 9/11 to the Snowden leaks, stories about surveillance increasingly dominate the headlines.But surveillance is not only 'done to us' - it is something we do in everyday life.We submit to surveillance, believing we have nothing to hide. Or we try to protect our privacy or negotiate the terms under which others have access to our data.At the same time, we participate in surveillance in order to supervise children, monitor other road users, and safeguard our property.Social media allow us to keep tabs on others, as well as on ourselves.This is the culture of surveillance. This important book explores the imaginaries and practices of everyday surveillance.Its main focus is not high-tech, organized surveillance operations but our varied, mundane experiences of surveillance that range from the casual and careless to the focused and intentional.It insists that it is time to stop using Orwellian metaphors and find ones suited to twenty-first-century surveillance - from 'The Circle' or 'Bla