Lemi Baruh & Levent Soysal Kadir Has University

Background & Problem  Rise of social media:  “Empowering” individuals to express themselves  Prerequisite: disclosure of intimate details  Discussions regarding threats to individual privacy  Control over identification information  Fraud & data security  Protection of underage users’ privacy (from sexual predators)  Institutions snooping around  Kansas University penalizes students after perusing Facebook photos of dorm parties.  Microsoft checks Facebook pages of potential employees. 2

Background & Problem  Most studies on privacy implications of social media adopted a piecemeal approach:  In isolation from each other and the broader context of a changing regime of surveillance  Purpose:  Investigate two related trends and their relationship to social media  Rise of personal, intimate and the subjective as a social currency  Evolving nature of automated surveillance 3

The New Individual: Image Laborer  Ulrich Beck’s Reflexive Modernity:  The self became the primary agent of meaning.  Objective, institution driven information loses credence as the currency of information derived from subjective & personal experience increases.  Phantasmagoric Workplace*  The individual is responsible for maintaining his/her own image constantly.  Having a unique image, being recognized is a crucial prerequisite of success in contemporary capitalism 5 “Professionals in pursuit of image” *Hearn, Alison 'John, a 20-year old Boston native with a great sense of humour': on the spectacularization of the 'self' and the incorporation of identity in the age of reality television. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 2 (2):

5 4 The New Individual: Image Laborer

6 The New Individual: Image 6

Modular Identity of the New Individual  Introversive Publicity  Individuals with introversive personality are characterized as being introspective.  Self expression of subjective experience in social media, despite its public nature, is introspective.  It is part of the image labor, and hence it is an act of publicity.  This does not mean it is intended to mislead  It is modular  This does not mean it is incoherent.  Each component added helps create and communicate a unique identity.  The introversive is temporary, incomplete and fleeting 7

Self Disclosure & Privacy Rights  In an environment of extensive surveillance, self-disclosure is seen as the only viable way for individuals to actively participate in the creation of images about themselves*  Example: Dr. Hasan Elahi ( 9 *Groombridge, N. (2002). Crime control or crime culture TV?. Surveillance and Society, 1, *Koskela, H. (2004). Webcams, TV shows and mobile phones: Empowering exhibitionism. Surveillance & Society, 2(2/3),

Contemporary Surveillance  Data intensive. Social and other forms of interactive media provide an increasingly larger share of data.  Data mining – algorithm based detection of deviations from the base statistic*  Three innocuous acts combined, who knows if they are a threat?  The components of the modular self are taken out of their context. 10 *Andrejevic, M. (2007). iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas

From Panopticon to… 11  The panopticon’s disciplinary function is partly dependent on uncertainty  “Chilling effect”

Kafkaesque Surveillance* 12 *Solove, D. J. (2001). Privacy and power: Computer databases and metaphors for information privacy. Stanford Law Review, 53,

Kafkaesque Surveillance*  Permanency of data  Aura of Objectivity: Rationalization of surveillance through automated mining  “...figure of the vicious tyrant is replaced by that of the indifferent bureaucrat.”**  Automated data-mining dehumanizes and consequently “removes human bias”.  The automated surveillant is indifferent and hence its inferences are “objective”  Reliance on statistical evidence adds to this aura of objectivity 15 *Solove, D. J. (2001). Privacy and power: Computer databases and metaphors for information privacy. Stanford Law Review, 53, **Mark Andrejevic. iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007