Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life

By William G. Staples

Book Overview

A second edition of this textbook is now available.

This book highlights 'mundane' practices that increasingly influence our schools, homes and communities; cameras, Opagers', electronic monitoring instruments, the digital Opaper trailO of OcashlessO transactions, random drug testing, and Ointegrity testsO. The author journeys back and forth between the justice system and the everyday life of the postmodern to illustrate how the lines between these two spheres of social life are increasingly blurred by the use of new surveillance technologies. Taken together, these surveillance rituals constitute the building blocks of a rapidly emerging society of discipline, one increasingly stripped of personal privacy, individual trust, and a viable public life that supports and maintains democratic values and practices.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742500780
• ISBN13: 9780742500785
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.9" x 0.6" x 6.4"

Customer Reviews

A worthwhile and englightening read

Though you may not like what you find out. Staples manages to weave sociological theory effortlessly through this engaging book, which details our surveillance culture. His analysis is clear, thoughtful, and full of examples from each of our every-day lives. His ideas have a solid theoretical grounding, but offer an original assessment of what is actually behind all those cameras, all-to-frequent drug tests, rising prison populations and the knowledge that someone is always watching us. Without paranoia or exaggeration, Staples evokes perfectly the surveillance situation in which we are living, explaining how it came about, what it really does for (and to) us, and what's likely to happen in the future.