Explicit terror prevention versus vague civil liberty: how the UK broadcasting news (de)legitimatise online mass surveillance since Edward Snowden’s revelations

Abstract

Explicit terror prevention versus vague civil liberty: How the UK broadcasting news (de)legitimatise online mass surveillance since Edward Snowden's revelationsLischka, Juliane A Abstract: Snowden's initial revelations aimed at establishing a public debate on online surveillance informed through the media. Media should serve the public's need for information and offer various viewpoints and sources to enhance public debates. This study assesses how online surveillance is justified or countered in British broadcast news since the 2013 Snowden revelations for five selected major events in news coverage ending with the Charlie Hebdo aftermath in Paris in early 2015. The critical discourse analysis shows that UK broadcasts cover justification and delegitimation arguments of online surveillance. Online surveillance legitimation combines rationalisation (terror prevention) and moral evaluation (public security) arguments, which are often expressed by governmental actors. The broadcast discourse tends to give governmental, pro-surveillance actors a voice by default. The detailedness of terror threat descriptions increases over time. In 2013, 'terrorist attacks' are rather factually mentioned. In 2015, several ways leading to a loss of lives through terror are explicitly stated, which strengthens the instrumental rationality legitimation arguments. Delegitimising arguments predominantly use moralising and mythopoetic arguments (civil liberties) that are expressed by Snowden himself or politicians, yet rarely by non-governmental organisations, and very rarely by citizens. It is harder for non-governmental actors to continuously interpret the broadcast discourse. Therefore, what exactly is at stake when online mass surveillance increases remains obscure in the news discourse. The surveillance discourse should be richer in order to give the audience a chance to understand the vague and less tangible contra-surveillance arguments better. Snowden's initial revelations aimed at establishing a public debate on online surveillance informed through the media. Media should serve the public's need for information and offer various viewpoints and sources to enhance public debates. This study assesses how online surveillance is justified or countered in British broadcast news since the 2013 Snowden revelations for five selected major events in news coverage ending with the Charlie Hebdo aftermath in Paris in early 2015. The critical discourse analysis shows that UK broadcasts cover justification and delegitimation arguments of online surveillance. Online surveillance legitimation combines rationalisation (terror prevention) and moral evaluation (public security) arguments, which are often expressed by governmental actors. The broadcast discourse tends to give governmental, pro-surveillance actors a voice by default. The detailedness of terror threat descriptions increases over time. In 2013, 'terrorist attacks' are rather factually mentioned. In 2015, several ways leading to a loss of lives through terror are explicitly stated, whic...

(De)legitimating electronic surveillance: a critical discourse analysis of the Finnish news coverage of the Edward Snowden revelations

“…Barnard-Wills (2009 detects similar discourses in the British pre-Snowden discussion of surveillance in various contexts, including the media, and political and financial sectors. Parallel discourses have also continued to circulate in the British media after the Snowden revelations (Lischka, 2017). (Cf.…”

“…In Britain, however, greater emphasis on security legitimation has been identified (e.g. Lischka, 2017; see, however, e.g. Branum & Charteris-Black 2015 for the substantial differences in ideologies between particular UK newspapers), which indicates a difference in the relations of dominance between Finnish and British discourses after the Snowden revelations.…”

“…This discourse appears typically in passages where advocates of surveillance -most prominently American officials -are quoted explicitly arguing in defense of surveillance (cf. Simone, 2009 andLischka, 2017). As these statements tend to appear in the form of direct or indirect quotations, they are clearly demarcated from their textual contexts and they are therefore easily read as speeches for the defense.…”

“…I will apply insights from Van Leeuwen's categories of legitimation and his analysis of social actor representation, both of which have repeatedly proved themselves useful for the analysis of (de)legitimation (e.g. Rasti & Sahragard, 2012;Reyes 2011; see also Lischka, 2017 for related methodology and Barnard-Wills, 2009, p. 337 andSchulze, 2015 for the importance of social actors in the legitimation of surveillance). My use of Van Leeuwen's work is twofold: Firstly, his insights are used as orientation in the early reading of the data to find passages particularly pertinent for (de)legitimation and thus for the discourses that contribute to it.…”

“…Barnard-Wills, 2009;Simone 2009), the global aftermath of the NSA scandal and consequent fast-changing understandings of the legitimacy of electronic surveillance still remain largely unexplored (but see e.g. Lischka, 2017;Schulze, 2015).…”