I guess it might be interesting to see if there is anything to which this can be compared. For example, is current usage of the camera/videoing facility on many mobile/cell phones a valid comparison? Do we see people using their phone cameras, which are a widely distributed, highly mobile and personal surveillance capable technology, in ways which will promote local vigilantism, blackmail and social exclusion? If so, why so? If not, why not? For example, in the 7/7 bombings, the media massively relied on public mobile/cell phone footage for coverage of the events - more so than CCTV.
As usual the answer will probably lie in the value systems which are historically embedded within the technologies and the socio-technical networks which support them. Clearly, the mobile/cell phone is coded differently to the CCTV camera, but why, and when, merits some consideration.
Cheers
Kirstie
Dr Kirstie S Ball
Senior Lecturer in Organization Studies
Open University Business School
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
Bucks MK7 6AA
-----Original Message-----
From: Research and teaching on surveillance [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ann Rudinow Sætnan
Sent: 12 January 2006 13:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: SV: Residents to be given access to live CCTV footage
I agree. Watching the control room would be a better experiment in terms of democratization. There is something very disturbing about the one-way window of surveillance. Ann R. Saetnan
________________________________
Fra: Research and teaching on surveillance på vegne av Nils Zurawski
Sendt: to 12.01.2006 14:40
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: Residents to be given access to live CCTV footage
david,
reading the article I do have the impression that
this is indeed a terrible idea, but one worth
exploring... the scheme looks like a live social
experiment of what will happen if... like David
Brin's ideas in "the transparent society".... to
watch out for one another.. sounds fine, but
implies a level of social control, vigilantism
steered and administered through CCTV that looks
threatening to me... blackmailing, social
exclusion, constant surveillance of all by all
.... would't it be more democratic to get a video
image out of the control room for everybody to
watch..?!... or into police stations... privacy
issues of police officers at work aside.. ?!
but thanks for the article... which indeed raises
interesting toughts and ideas..
best nilz
>I am not sure that this is such a terrible idea
>IF we are to have CCTV. One of the main issues
>with CCTV is that the gaze is an unaccountable
>power worked by 'the state' or by some other
>authority. Here we have a system where any
>resident is able to exercise that gaze. This
>seems to me one of the only logical democratic
>solutions to how to deal with CCTV in this
>context. Of course it could be used for all
>kinds of petty grudges and score-settling, bugt
>that's more a comment on human beings and the political-economic system
>more generally not the technology itself. Like anything else people
>have to establish new relationships with and
>through the technology if it is to 'work' in
>ways that they want. I don't buy the comments
>about some idealised 1950s community, but
>there's no reason why this can't be positive,
>whether it will is a another matter....
>
>... and of course I said IF we are to have
>CCTV... and the question of whether we should
>have it at all or so extensively is another
>question.
>
--
Dr. Nils Zurawski
Universität Hamburg
Inst. für kriminologische Sozialforschung
Allende-Platz 1
20146 Hamburg
Germany
tel. +49 (0) 40 42838 6185
fax. +49 (0) 40 42838 2328
Projekt zu Videoüberwachung: http://www.surveillance-studies.org
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