Big Data Research

Date: April, 27th, from 9:00 to 17:00
Room: A34

Course Material: Suggested prior readings for the course. Several readings are authored or co-authored by David Lyon so you will have the chance to discuss directly with him.

Surveillance Studies Course 2017 (Texts: Lyon, Surveillance Studies. Polity 2007, Bennett et al, Transparent Lives, Athabasca 2014 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120237/ebook/99Z_Bennett_et_al_2014-Transparent_Lives.pdf [the latter is in English or French])

This short course will describe the main changes that have occurred in the institutions and practices of surveillance since the later twentieth century, with a special focus on the relationship between media, technology and society (the technosocial). Changing practices have led to the expansion of surveillance in every sphere, most notably that of consumers, citizens, employees, and travellers. But the awareness of those surveilled has also altered over time and as Big Data practices of surveillance draw heavily on social media this, too, raises important questions about how surveillance is understood. How are ‘surveillance capitalism’ and ‘surveillance culture’ connected?

1. Technological surveillance (from 1960s)

Sites: workplace, police, government, consumer
Features: social sorting, past orientation; specific targets
Concepts/ theories: Orwell, Big Brother/ Foucault, panopticon; surveillance state

Reading:
David Lyon. “Everyday Surveillance: Personal Data and Social Classification,” Information, Communication, and Society, 5(1), 2002. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Lyon10/publication/233285311_Everyday_Surveillance_Personal_data_and_social_classifications/links/54106f3d0cf2d8daaad3ce91.pdf
Kevin Haggerty and Richard Ericson. “The Surveillant Assemblage” British Journal of Sociology  51(4): 605-622. 2000.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.392.9622&rep=rep1&type=pdf

2. Digital surveillance (from the 1990s)

Sites: everyday life, from street cameras to geo-demographic clustering
Features: present orientation; generalizable targets
Concepts/theories: Foucault: biopower, governmentality; surveillance society; security-surveillance

Reading:
David Lyon. “Surveillance, security, and social sorting: the emerging research agenda”, International Criminal Justice Review, 17 (3), 2007. [see .pdf]

Gary T. Marx. “What’s new about the ‘new surveillance’? Classifying for change and continuity.” Surveillance & Society. 1(1): 9-29.
http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/articles1/whatsnew.pdf

3. Big Data surveillance (from the 2010s)

Sites: unavoidable through devices, sensors etc.; mobile telephony, social media
Features: future orientation; mass, suspicionless; data collection without specified purpose
Concepts/ theories: algorithms, prediction, surveillance-innovation complex; vulnerability: class, race, gender; surveillance capitalism

Reading:
David Lyon. “Surveillance, Snowden and Big Data: Capacities, Consequences, Critique” Big Data & Society 1 (1): 1-13. 2014.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2053951714541861
danah boyd and Kate Crawford. “Critical Questions for Big Data.” Information, Communication and Society. 15(5): 662-679 2012. https://people.cs.kuleuven.be/~bettina.berendt/teaching/ViennaDH15/boyd_crawford_2012.pdf