CHRISTIAN FUCHS - ICT&S - Universität Salzburg

Christian Fuchs: Social Networking Sites and the Surveillance SocietyN 613Mother White Collar Worker:Correlation Coefficient0.003Sig. (2-tailed)0.932N613Mother Civil Servant:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)NMother Self-Employed:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)NMother Retiree:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)NMother Unemployed:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)NMother Housewife:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)NUsage Intensity ISNS:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)NRead Terms of Use:Correlation CoefficientSig. (2-tailed)N** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)0.0640.1146130.0330.416613-0.0480.239613-0.0180.654613-0.0800.048613-0.172**0.0006130.0830.041613Table 12. Bivariate correlations of surveillance critique index and other factorsOur study shows that the knowledge about surveillance of students in Salzburg is ratherlow, whereas their critical attitude towards surveillance is rather high. The knowledgeand the critique index are positively correlated: The more knowledge students haveabout surveillance, the more critical they tend to become. There is a positive correlationthat is significant at the 0.01 level (see table 13). The more critical they are, the moreknowledge they tend to have about surveillance. How can it be explained that thereseems to be little knowledge of actual surveillance, but a high level of criticism towardssurveillance? The students in our survey tend to see surveillance as a problem. So forexample an overwhelming majority of them thinks that corporations have an interest ingathering and using data and says that one needs to be afraid of surveillance even ifone has done nothing illegal and does not intend to break the law. There seems to be ageneral feeling of students that surveillance is dangerous, threatens the privacy of allindividuals, and creates a climate, in which one is automatically considered to be apotential criminal or terrorist. So young people seem to be socialized in a way thattends to create suspicion towards surveillance. For example many pupils in school readand discuss books like George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave NewWorld”. But there is not much knowledge about the actual laws in Europe and Austria67