From Protest to Surveillance – The Political Rationality of Mobile Media: Modalities of Neoliberalism - Hardcover

Oliver Leistert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3631643136 ISBN 13: 9783631643136

Publisher: Peter Lang AG, 2013

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Peter Lang AG
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3631643136
• ISBN 13: 9783631643136
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 289