Lemi Baruh&

Levent Soysal

Kadir Has University

Background & Problem

Rise of social media: “Empowering” individuals to express

themselves Prerequisite: disclosure of intimate

details Discussions regarding threats to

individual privacy Control over identification information Fraud & data security Protection of underage users’ privacy (from sexual

predators) Institutions snooping around

Kansas University penalizes students after perusing Facebook photos of dorm parties.

Microsoft checks Facebook pages of potential employees.

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Background & Problem

Most studies on privacy implications of social media adopted a piecemeal approach: In isolation from each other and the

broader context of a changing regime of surveillance

Purpose: Investigate two related trends and

their relationship to social media Rise of personal, intimate and the

subjective as a social currency Evolving nature of automated surveillance

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The New Individual: Image Laborer Ulrich Beck’s Reflexive

Modernity: The self became the primary

agent of meaning. Objective, institution driven

information loses credence as the currency of information derived from subjective & personal experience increases.

Phantasmagoric Workplace* The individual is responsible

for maintaining his/her own image constantly.

Having a unique image, being recognized is a crucial prerequisite of success in contemporary capitalism

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“Professionals in pursuit of image”

*Hearn, Alison. 2006. 'John, a 20-year old Boston native with a great sense of humour': on the spectacularization of the 'self' and the incorporation of identity in the age of reality television. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 2 (2):131-147.

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The New Individual: Image Laborer

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The New Individual: Image

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Modular Identity of the New Individual

Introversive Publicity Individuals with introversive

personality are characterized as being introspective.

Self expression of subjective experience in social media, despite its public nature, is introspective.

It is part of the image labor, and hence it is an act of publicity. This does not mean it is intended to

mislead It is modular

This does not mean it is incoherent. Each component added helps create

and communicate a unique identity. The introversive is temporary,

incomplete and fleeting 7

Self Disclosure & Privacy Rights In an environment of extensive surveillance, self-disclosure is seen as the

only viable way for individuals to actively participate in the creation of images about themselves*

Example: Dr. Hasan Elahi (www.trackingtransience.net)

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*Groombridge, N. (2002). Crime control or crime culture TV?. Surveillance and Society, 1, 30-36.*Koskela, H. (2004). Webcams, TV shows and mobile phones: Empowering exhibitionism. Surveillance & Society, 2(2/3), 200-215.

Contemporary Surveillance

Data intensive. Social and other forms of interactive media provide an increasingly larger share of data.

Data mining – algorithm based detection of deviations from the base statistic* Three innocuous acts combined, who knows if they are a threat?

The components of the modular self are taken out of their context.

10*Andrejevic, M. (2007). iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas

From Panopticon to…

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The panopticon’s disciplinary function is partly dependent on uncertainty

“Chilling effect”

Kafkaesque Surveillance*

12*Solove, D. J. (2001). Privacy and power: Computer databases and metaphors for information privacy. Stanford Law Review, 53, 1393-1462.

Kafkaesque Surveillance* Permanency of data Aura of Objectivity: Rationalization of surveillance

through automated mining “...figure of the vicious tyrant is replaced by that of the

indifferent bureaucrat.”**

Automated data-mining dehumanizes and consequently “removes human bias”.

The automated surveillant is indifferent and hence its inferences are “objective”

Reliance on statistical evidence adds to this aura of objectivity

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*Solove, D. J. (2001). Privacy and power: Computer databases and metaphors for information privacy. Stanford Law Review, 53, 1393-1462.

**Mark Andrejevic. iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007