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Social Science General

The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility

edited by Kevin Haggerty & Richard Ericson

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Mar 2006
Category
General, Telecommunications, Social Aspects, Media Studies
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802048783
    Publish Date
    Mar 2006
    List Price
    $51.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442681880
    Publish Date
    Mar 2006
    List Price
    $125.00

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Description

Since the terrorist attacks of September 2001, surveillance has been put forward as the essential tool for the ‘war on terror,’ with new technologies and policies offering police and military operatives enhanced opportunities for monitoring suspect populations. The last few years have also seen the public’s consumer tastes become increasingly codified, with ‘data mines’ of demographic information such as postal codes and purchasing records. Additionally, surveillance has become a form of entertainment, with ‘reality’ shows becoming the dominant genre on network and cable television.

In The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility, editors Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson bring together leading experts to analyse how society is organized through surveillance systems, technologies, and practices. They demonstrate how the new political uses of surveillance make visible that which was previously unknown, blur the boundaries between public and private, rewrite the norms of privacy, create new forms of inclusion and exclusion, and alter processes of democratic accountability. This collection challenges conventional wisdom and advances new theoretical approaches through a series of studies of surveillance in policing, the military, commercial enterprises, mass media, and health sciences.

About the authors

Kevin D. Haggerty is a member of Green College and a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of British Columbia.

Kevin Haggerty's profile page

The late Richard V. Ericson was Principal of Green College, University of British Columbia, a centre for interdisciplinary scholarship and graduate education.

Richard Ericson's profile page