CHRISTIAN FUCHS - ICT&S - UniversitÃ¤t Salzburg

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Christian Fuchs: Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance Societycirculation function of the media, legitimatizing function of the media, advertising- andpublic-relations function of the media, regenerative function of the media, propagandamodel of the media, communicative action, dialogic communication, discursivecommunication, communication empire, transnational informational capitalism,working class culture, subculture, etc, under one united umbrella definition that seesthem as differentiated unity in plurality that is termed critical communication andmedia studies.Critical studies have to do with the Marxian“categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased,enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be betterdescribed than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a taxon dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings!“ (MEW 1: 385 1 ).If we understand Marxian critique based on the critical categoric imperative as thecritique of all forms of domination and all dominative relationships, then all criticaltheory/research and therefore also all critical media and communication studies areMarxian-inspired.One important aspect of critical studies is that they focus on the critique of society astotality, i.e. they frame research issues by the macro context of the developmentdynamics of society as a whole. Herbert Marcuse has argued in this respect that criticalresearch analyzes and criticizes “the totality of the established world” (Marcuse1937/1988: 134). “It is more due to the theory’s claim to explain the totality of man andhis world in terms of his social being” (Marcuse 1937/1988: 134f). This focus of criticalresearch implies that the dominant two types of ISNS research, as conducted by technopessimistslike Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross and techno-optimists like danahboyd, is uncritical because it does not focus on how ISNS are conditioned by thetotality of society. Counter to these uncritical approaches, it is the intention of this studyto make a critical analysis, which means to analyze how repressive qualities of thetotality, especially state surveillance after 9/11, capital accumulation and corporateprofits, and economic surveillance, shape ISNS. ISNS usage is conditioned by thecapitalist economy, the political system, and dominant cultural value patterns andconflicts.The foundation of critical ISNS research, which some might find discomforting, is thatthere are no easy solutions to societal problems. Such problems will neither disappearby using more or less technology or using technology differently nor by changingindividual behaviour. More fundamental political changes are necessary. Theimplication is that as long as there are corporate interests in technology and as long asthere is what some now term a new imperialism (Harvey 2003, Panitch/Leys 2004,Wood 2003) that has created the conditions for 9/11, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan andthat creates a vicious mutual reinforcing cycle of terror and war, ISNS users will beconfronted by economic and political surveillance. As long as states see increasingsurveillance as an increase of security, there will be a decrease of privacy and freedom.1 Translation from: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/critique-hpr/intro.htm, accessed onSeptember 30, 2008.21
Christian Fuchs: Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance SocietyAs long as ISNS are objects of capital accumulation, users will witness how their dataare collected, analyzed, statistically evaluated, and sold as commodities. CommercialISNS are profit-oriented and therefore aim at gathering as much personal data aspossible in order to sell it to third parties that advertise on the platform so that profit canbe generated. The real threat is that ISNS users become objects of state surveillancebecause providers pass on their data to the police or the secret service and objects ofeconomic surveillance that drives capital accumulation. Given the current societalframework, these processes are almost inevitable. The real threats are corporateinterests and state surveillance. The problem is not the individual behaviour of youngpeople. If we want to protect them, then we need to change society. The crucial pointhere is that no matter if users set their profiles to visible or invisible, commercial ISNSwill always pass on the data to the state as long as there are interests in establishing a"surveillance society", and to other companies and advertisers, as long as they have aprofit interest. Therefore the only solution to privacy threats is to overcome newimperialism, surveillance society, and capitalism. If research just focuses on issues suchas individual privacy settings and how they can be adjusted, or individualempowerment, then one neglects these issues and therefore conducts uncriticalresearch.Critical research sees the relationship of society and technology as dialectical, i.e. as aprocess of mutual shaping (Fuchs 2008). Technological determinism is “the idea thattechnology develops as the sole result of an internally dynamic, and then, unmediatedby any other influence, molds society to fit its pattern” (Winner 1980/1999: 29). Bothtechno-optimism and techno-pessimism are forms of technological determinism. Incontrast, dialectical analyses of technology and society constitute a form of realism,they identify contradicting forces and potentials and show how these contradictionsexactly take form, and to which extent each dialectical pole is developed (Fuchs 2008).4. The Societal Context of Integrated Social Networking Sites (ISNS): Political andEconomic Electronic SurveillanceSurveillance means that someone “is seen, but he does not see; he is the object ofinformation, never a subject in communication” (Foucault 1977: 200). Surveillance is apower that is “capable of making all visible, as long as it […] [can] itself remaininvisible” (Foucault 1977: 214). Foucault considers contemporary society as society ofsurveillance and as disciplinary society. He makes clear that surveillance is a repressive,coercive process:“Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance. (…) the individual iscarefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies”(Foucault 1977: 217).For Giddens, surveillance means the accumulation of information defined as symbolicmaterials that can be stored by an agency or collectivity as well as the supervision ofthe activities of subordinates by their superiors within any collectivity (Giddens 1981:169). The modern nation state would from its beginning have been an informationsociety because it would collect and store information on citizens (births, marriages,deaths, demographic and fiscal statistics, ‘moral statistics’ relating to suicide, divorce,delinquency, etc.) in order to organize administration.22
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CHRISTIAN FUCHS - ICT&S - UniversitÃ¤t Salzburg

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