Enjoy Surveillance

Mobile Phone Surveillance

While there already is a good amount of reasoning and empirical research on reality TV and some also on webcams, the third increasingly important way of creating and circulating images remains more or less under-researched until now, namely, the mobile phones with cameras. The increase in the amount of camera phones is likely to crucially change the role of visual representations. Finland provides a good example of this. Already, almost every adult Finn (and many children as well) carries a mobile phone (Kopomaa, 2000). Each phone approximately lasts between two or three years, and many of the new models have a camera installed in them. This will mean that within a couple of years almost everyone will carry a camera. What kind of images will become popular, what uses will they have, and where they will be circulated, remains unanswered. Although camera phones do not literally form a surveillance system, they can create a condition, which is reminiscent of surveillance.

Aus Webcams, TV Shows and Mobile phones: Empowering Exhibitionism, gefunden in der Special Issue: The Politics of CCTV in Europe and Beyond von Surveillance and Society.

5. October 2005 - 19:34