User:Gabrielamolano/Participatory surveillance

''Contributions - I had copied and pasted the first few sentences from the original article (indicated by writing "Original Article" in [] at the beginning and end) and added information that would follow after those sentences. Also, the first paragraph in the social media section under 'Counter-surveillance" was copied and pasted from the original article (also indicated by writing "Original Article" in [] at the beginning and end), however I contributed the information in the second paragraph. Along with this, I had inserted an image with a simple caption below the image to demonstrate daily surveillance - Gabi''

[Original Article] Participatory surveillance is community-based monitoring of other individuals. This term can be applied to both digital media studies and ecological field studies. In the realm of media studies, it refers to how users surveil each other using the internet. Either through the use of social media, search engines, and other web-based methods of tracking, an individual has the power to find information both freely or non freely given by the individual being searched. [Original Article]

This idea of surveillance can also be seen as individuals participating at one's own will to "watch" others through the act of surveilling and to be "watched" by others. This means that if one is participating in the act of recording or sharing human activity (and/or data), the individual will be surveilling while others are surveilling what the individual shared. Another way of expressing this is that "surveillance is seen as participatory, perpetuated by the subjects of surveillance themselves". Individuals can then gain the ability to regulate not only one's own monitoring, but also the monitoring of others. That being said, Humphreys suggests that "surveillance entails 'power or influence over others'".

Another mode of participatory surveillance that can come into play is a concept known as "surveillance imaginaries". This form of surveillance revolves around the assumption that one is or will be surveilled and because of this one attempts to "appeal to an imagined audience" during the process of one's self-surveillance. Through this concept, individuals create personas within there self-surveillance in order to ensure if others comes across that individuals data and/or shared content, then they will see what the individual desires them to see.

Counter-surveillance
[Original Article] Counter-surveillance refers to the personal monitoring of individuals through means of the online information highway. Through government and corporate surveilling practices, the average person has begun to develop an interest in a type of profiling of friends and others through digital technology. However, this enlightens the fact that the average person does not fully understand the surveilling practices used by larger collectivities. With more training in these capacities, it allows greater accountability and management of how surveillance is used and analyzed in everyday associations. As digital technology advances with many dangers associated to privacy, individuals are attempting to be more accountable when meeting individuals. Background check websites and search engine sources reveal just how many people attempt to find information on another person, whatever the reason. Some researchers assert that by using these technologies of surveillance, the same ones used by companies to track consumer tendencies, the public is essentially feeding into practices of their own personal surveillance. [Original Article]

However with these concerns of privacy and/or exploitation, counter-surveillance can also be seen as a form of reversing the act of surveillance onto those who were initially doing the surveilling. This is a concept in which "Marx describ[ed] as 'counter-surveillance moves'". Due to, what seems as, unlimited access to technology and media platforms, individuals have the ability to partake in this idea of counter-surveillance through devices such as a cell phone. An example in which counter-surveillance can be applied is toward authoritarian institutions, most commonly police officers. In the events of a protest, video cameras and cell phones are commonly used in order to monitor police abuses. With this ability to record police brutality and publicizing the content, individuals gain the "power" to regulate authoritative figures. In regards to a protest, it can also result in activists subverting these figures of authority and can "more successfully coordinate and execute their direct actions". For this reason, this form of surveillance can empower individuals to monitor and ensure justice within the justice and social system.