Skip to main content

Constitutive Surveillance and Social Media

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Second International Handbook of Internet Research
  • 1994 Accesses

Abstract

The surveillance studies field considers its subject to be centrally important to our contemporary, technologized societies. The editors of the Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies write that surveillance “has always been a component of institutional routines and human sociality, but over perhaps the past 40 years it has emerged as the dominant organising practice of late modernity” (Lyon et al. 2012, p. 1). This chapter will apply the view of surveillance as “dominant organizing practice” to social media, configuring this surveillance generally as an apparatus of Foucauldian power. Ultimately, the chapter advances a ‘constitutive’ surveillance framework as an avenue for critique, enumerating four ‘forms’ of surveillance—economic, political, lateral, and oppositional—which coalesce and conflict in the constitution of Facebook.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 449.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 599.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ryan Tippet .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature B.V.

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Tippet, R. (2020). Constitutive Surveillance and Social Media. In: Hunsinger, J., Allen, M., Klastrup, L. (eds) Second International Handbook of Internet Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-1555-1_31

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics