Surveillance as information practice

Abstract

Surveillance, as a concept and social practice, is inextricably linked to information. It is, at its core, about information extraction and analysis conducted for some regulatory purpose. Yet, information science research only sporadically leverages surveillance studies scholarship, and we see a lack of sustained and focused attention to surveillance as an object of research within the domains of information behavior and social informatics. Surveillance, as a range of contextual and culturally based social practices defined by their connections to information seeking and use, should be framed as information practice—as that term is used within information behavior scholarship. Similarly, manifestations of surveillance in society are frequently perfect examples of information and communications technologies situated within everyday social and organizational structures—the very focus of social informatics research. The technological infrastructures and material artifacts of surveillance practice—surveillance technologies—can also be viewed as information tools. Framing surveillance as information practice and conceptualizing surveillance technologies as socially and contextually situated information tools can provide space for new avenues of research within the information sciences, especially within information disciplines that focus their attention on the social aspects of information and information technologies in society.