From Protest to Surveillance – The Political Rationality of Mobile Media: Modalities of Neoliberalism
Author:
Oliver Leistert
ISBN:
9783631643136
Binding:
Hardcover
Year:
2013
Pages:
280
Size:
15 x 21 cm
Weight:
465 grams
Price:
INR
3290.00
The book won the Surveillance Studies Network Book Prize 2014.The book argues that the mobile as a political technology in a broad sense facilitates the global export of the Western concept of individuality. This empowers those subjectivities and mindsets which can adapt to the communication regime of ubiquitous connectivity. Exemplifying two focal points – the use in protests and the surveillance of mobile phones – the book traces political trajectories of mobile phones, just as it provides deep insights into the actual practice of mobile phone use by activists and their surveillance. 50 semi-structured interviews with activists from countries including Brazil, India, Pakistan and Mexico offer a detailed and profound discussion of mobile phone success and failures in different struggles for justice. By situating mobile phone mass dissemination within a political rationality of neoliberalism and its political technology of governmentality, it shows how sovereign rule updates to catch up with the subject’s empowerment through mobile phones. The limits of mobile phone impact on activism are examined, and how it compromises its users when new sovereign means such as data retention or silent SMS surveillance are invoked.
Oliver Leistert
Oliver Leistert, Dr. phil., has been researching media activism and surveillance for many years. His research interests include governmentality studies, media theory, digital methods, surveillance studies, social media and empirical research.