Theories of the Information Society, Third Edition - Cryptome

INFORMATION, REFLEXIVITY AND SURVEILLANCE
long individuals use the telephone; or where they shop, what they buy, how
frequently they buy certain goods, how much they spend; or what they spent
when and where.
There is, of course, a sinister side to all of this, but here I want to stress the
practical use of such surveillance to modern corporations. The transactional information
that is amassed whenever someone makes a purchase at the store’s
computerised tills tells the company, precisely, what is selling, how rapidly or
slowly, in which locations – essential information to the managers of the organisation.
Moreover, when the customer uses a company credit card, the
information is that much richer because it contributes towards an individuated
portrait of that person’s spending habits, clothing and food tastes, even preferred
shopping locations. As such it is a form of surveillance that can very helpfully
enhance the company’s marketing strategies – for example, advertising material
can be judiciously targeted to particular types of customer, accompanied by
a tempting offer or privilege. David Lyon (2001) aptly terms this surveillance
categorical seduction.
There is a final form of surveillance that is easily overlooked since it appears
only to apply to a tiny few, but it is worthy of much more serious analysis.
Categorical exposure is signalled in the massive development of media and its
increasingly intrusive character. Most commonly witnessed in coverage of celebrities
of one sort or another, though one must note that celebrity is a fluid term,
quite capable of including pretty well any public figure from minor politician to
civil servant, from footballer to singer, should circumstances allow. Moreover,
circumstances are quite capable of allowing an extension of this exposure to the
parents of someone caught up in a ghastly crime or scandal, or even when they
are a victim of an accident or assault. Exposure is characteristically carried out
by the tabloid press (though the tabloidisation of media more generally means
that the process extends much further than the pages of the Sun, the Mail and
the Mirror). It is intrusive and persistent, as a host of cases in recent years have
demonstrated (Mathieson, 1997). Anyone targeted for such exposure (often
celebrities and/or also the naïve and unsuspecting) is sure to have their friends
and family closely scrutinised, their biographies closely examined for any signs of
suspicion or story and their day-to-day activities given the closest inspection. The
pursuit of Bill Clinton by the American media, apparently concerned more about
his sex life than about his presidential responsibilities in the mid- to late 1990s,
provides an especially vivid example of such exposure. There are many more
instances, from the macabre coverage of footballer George Best’s dying days in
the late autumn of 2005, to the peccadilloes of Premier League players, to the
hounding of Cherie Booth, wife of Tony Blair, to accuse her of impropriety regarding
her dress, her looks, her friends and her professional activities. Categorical
exposure has deeply intruded into politics and celebrity where there appear to be
few acceptable boundaries between private and public life, but it extends far
beyond that (we get some sense of its spread from the remarkable popularity of
the Big Brother television series where viewers may watch and listen, voyeuristically,
to the intimate revelations and relations of candidates who have been
carefully chosen and are periodically manipulated by the programme makers).
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