Personal Information, Borders, and the New Surveillance Studies

Abstract

This article reviews and critiques recent scholarship on surveillance and communication technology that involves the crossing of personal information borders. A Sociology of Information framework focusing on the normative elements is proposed as a way to integrate this variegated field. Empirical analysis is particularly needed to test the claims of surveillance scholars, and we suggest some hypotheses. The article concludes with a consideration of conflicting values and empirical trends that make this such a challenging field and suggests some “moral mandates” to guide research in the crossing of personal informational borders, whether this involves individual privacy and accountability or broader social concerns.

Student Vulnerability, Agency and Learning Analytics: An Exploration

“…The scope and role of the coercive and nudging nature of online platforms that encourage information sharing (see, for example, Marx & Muschert, 2007;Raynes-Goldie, 2010) adds another dimension to the link between interrogation and vulnerability.…”

“…It renders us legible to others, open, accessible, subject to everyone's idiosyncratic projects -whether governmental, commercial, personal, or intimate… And it does so with our full participation." (Harcourt, 2015, p. 15) Amidst the current hype around big data (e.g., Boelstorff, 2013) presenting "a paradigm shift in the ways we understand and study our world" (Eynon, 2013, p. 237), there are a number of authors who flag concerns around the "neutrality" of data and algorithms (Boyd & Crawford, 2013;Crawford, 2013;Danaher, 2014;Gitelman, 2013;Marx, 2001;Marx & Muschert;2007;Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2013;Morozov, 2013;Pasquale, 2015), the possible negative impacts of discrimination (Henman, 2004), the increasing sharing of information by individuals (Solove, 2001(Solove, , 2004(Solove, , 2013, the quantified self (Boam & Webb, 2014;Carney, 2013;Lupton, 2014a), privacy (Lanier, 2013;Marwick, 2014;Solove, 2002Solove, , 2013Tene & Polonetsky, 2012), and the governance of data (Slade & Prinsloo, 2013;Stiles, 2012;Totaro & Ninno, 2014). The collection, analysis, and sharing of data by a range of stakeholders such as government, commercial enterprises, and increasingly within education, foregrounds the issue of disclosure and the variety of options for users to opt in or out (if provided the opportunity) (Crawford & Schultz, 2013;Lane, Stodden, Bender, & Nissenbaum, 2015;Miyazaki & Fernandez, 2000;Ohm, 2010;Solove, 2013).…”

Big(ger) data as better data in open distance learning

“…This delimitation is, however, somewhat problematic, as the lattices of information networking (Solove, 2004) do not necessarily care about the (relatively) artificial boundaries between data 'in' higher education and data 'outside' of higher education. There is evidence that the nature of these boundaries may, actually, become increasingly artificial as student data becomes a potential income stream for institutions, and secondly, as student learning moves beyond the strict confines of institutional learning management systems (LMS) ) (also see Bennet, 2001;Giroux, 2014;Lyon, 2014;Marx & Muschert, 2007). …”

Carnivalesque collaborations: reflections on ‘doing’ multi-disciplinary research

“…The nature of the problem dictated that a multi-disciplinary team was required, to understand all the potential impacts of the regulations. The context for the project was the surveillance studies, a discipline that has grown in prominence in the past 20 years (see Marx and Muschert, 2007;Surveillance Studies Network, 2006;. Augmenting this surveillance work were significant methodological and theoretical contributions, including how surveillance makes modern living possible (Lyon, 2001), its impact on consumer activities (Andrejevic, 2009;Gandy, 2009Gandy, , 2010, and the technological or digital bearings on surveillance and society (Vlcek, 2007;Graham, 2005).…”