Visibility and Control: Cameras and Certainty in Governing

(Hardback)

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Description

Visibility and Control: Cameras and Certainty in Governing addresses the ways in which camera-produced images are used to support governmental authority. The text begins by examining some of the basic levels at which the body interacts with media, and then expands the scope of the analysis to consider the use of CCTV in urban environments and how that affects the experience of space. This shows how the determination of the subject and the observer is affected by interaction with and exposure to images produced by cameras. The relationship between the body and media, between media and the determination of space and how media is used to determine the nature of deviance in contemporary Western culture are evaluated as a means of establishing and maintaining authority through images. Scholars of media theory, surveillance studies, and the social sciences will find this book particularly interesting.

Reviews

An essential probe into the culture of state surveillance and its sociopolitical applications to evidentiary functions of all kinds in the process of mediatizing security. Covers a broad range of image technologies. Historically thorough, concentrating on the primacy of CCTV used in the London and Toronto G20 summits as prototypes of surveillance and the politics of control. Skilfully grounded in the scholarship of principally Baudrillard, Foucault and McLuhan. Confirms the importance of images in not only enabling but also legitimizing the use of power by the state. Required reading for law enforcement agencies, policy makers, think tanks, lobbyists, civil society entities, and citizens concerned about privacy, rights and freedoms.

-- Donald J. Gillies, Ryerson University, Toronto; University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland

Surveillance is everywhere, both as a reality and a topic for debate. It is lauded as a means of protection, criticised as an invasion of privacy, and dramatised in TV police procedurals. But what is it How does it work And what is its effect in courts of law Drawing on everything from film theory to discourse analysis, Jeff Heydon explains all in a profound and important study.

-- Toby Miller, Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana, Murdoch University

Author Bio

Jeff Heydon teaches in the Communications Studies Department at Wilfrid Laurier University.