Surveillance Studies: An Overview - Softcover

'David Lyon's work demands our utmost respect and admiration for its scope, balance and clarity. If one were restricted to the reliance on only one text on surveillance I would suggest without hesitation to select this book.' Ursula M. Franklin, University of Toronto 'A clearly written, comprehensive and balanced introduction to the burgeoning field of surveillance studies. Definitive (or even pretty good) answers are elusive, but this book does a fine job of asking the right social scientific and moral questions.' Gary T. Marx, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 'This is an excellent book that I will recommend to any student working in the field. It is clear, profound and well structured, opening new ways of conceptualizing surveillance, beyond the terminology of the surveillance society. The closing chapter, on data, discrimination and dignity, is especially important for any citizen of the world concerned with civil liberties.' Didier Bigo, Sciences Po Paris

The study of surveillance is more relevant than ever before. The fast growth of the field of surveillance studies reflects both the urgency of civil liberties and privacy questions in the ‘war on terror’ era and the classical social science debates over the power of watching and classification, from Bentham to Foucault and beyond. In this overview, David Lyon, one of the pioneers of surveillance studies, fuses with aplomb classical debates and contemporary examples to provide the most accessible and up-to-date introduction to surveillance available.
 
The book takes in surveillance studies in all its breadth, from local face-to-face oversight through technical developments in closed-circuit TV, radio frequency identification and biometrics to global trends that integrate surveillance systems internationally. Surveillance is understood in its ambiguity, from ‘caring’ to ‘controlling’, and the role of ‘visibility’ of the surveilled is taken as seriously as the powers of observing, classifying and judging. The book draws on international examples and on the insights of several disciplines; sociologists, political scientists and geographers will recognize key issues from their work here, but so will people from media, culture, organization, technology and policy studies. This illustrates the diverse strands of thought and critique available, while at the same time the book makes its own distinct contribution and offers tools for evaluating both surveillance trends and the theories that explain them.
 
This book is the perfect introduction for anyone wanting to understand surveillance as a phenomenon and the tools for analysing it further, and will be essential reading for students and scholars alike.