Technological innovation and organizational application has meant that, in the modern world, the actions of both citizens and institutions are being scrutinized and archived as never before. Personal information has become a key commodity and resource, data capturing systems routinely extracting 'informatic particles' from individuals as they partake in mundane activities like shopping, web browsing, SMS messaging and traveling. Although surveillance makes social action visible, the relative invisibility of surveillance as a social process has meant that its techniques and procedures have become increasingly ‘naturalized’, relatively unexceptional structures in the physical and cultural fabric of everyday living. This naturalization of visibility practices and person-exposure has been augmented by the emergence of popular mediatized cultures which valorise 'celebrity' and the act of 'revelation'. Social networking platforms and mobile communication technologies have furthered helped foster a sensibility orientated towards recurrent 'confession' and the divulgence of intimacy.

Surveillance and Society considers relational interplays between surveillance systems and exposed objects/subjects. We will explore the historical origins and cultural representations of today's 'surveillance society', examining how the social forces of modernity and contingent organizational reconfigurations have enabled technologies of visibility to be sedimented into particular privileged regions of the world and have prompted particular utopian/dystopian interpretations. This will help us better comprehend the complexities of surveillance as both a material force and a discursive construction, and the politics and economic imperatives influencing system emergence and operativity. We will also review the major theories and concepts in the surveillance studies field and apply these critically to an array of empirical case studies. As such, the course equips students with the theoretical tools required to comprehend critically the diverse ways in which surveillance is produced, operationalized and experienced and with the empirical knowledge needed to better grasp how surveillance influences everyday social relations. Students will complete the course with a sharpened and informed sociological awareness of how and in whose interests surveillance systems tend to operate and with what social, political and ethical implications.

The course will be taught by leading experts in the field of surveillance studies and will involve students completing practical exercises to sharpen their critical engagement with the social world.

On satisfying the requirements for this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

1. Discern the socio-cultural, political and economic factors behind the intensification of surveillance.
2. Identify and comprehend the complex interplays between surveillance systems and surveillance subjects.
3. Critically evaluate the social impacts and political implications of surveillance in everyday life.
4. Understand theoretical perspectives and concepts developed by surveillance scholars to analyse surveillance practices, processes and policies.
5. Undertake and assess research as applied to current shifts in the practice of surveillance.
6. Evaluate and communicate complex ideas in a lucid and critical fashion.

• One 1500 word 'Precis & Analysis Book Review' (35%) [Learning Outcomes 1, 4, 5 & 6]
• 'Seminar Presentation' (10%) [Learning Outcomes 2, 3 & 6]
• 'Seminar Participation' (10%) [Learning Outcomes 2, 3 & 6]
• One 2000 word 'Synthesis Examination' (45%) [Learning Outcomes 1 - 6]

Precis & Analysis Book Review [Learning Outcomes 1, 4, 5 & 6]:

Students will be asked to a) select ONE surveillance monograph from a selection and b) write a 'Precis & Analysis Book Review'. This exercise will require that students summarise the chosen book's core thesis and evaluate critically the thematic content in terms of its contribution to knowledge.

Seminar Engagement [Learning Outcomes 2, 3 & 6]:

This assessment type has two components.

Seminar Presentation: your tutor will allocate a weekly topic to you and another student in your seminar group. Each of you will be asked to address in a sociologically-informed manner a specific pre-determined question in your respective presentations. Individual presentations should last for ten minutes. The mark allocated for your presentation will be calculated according to your ability to provide a logical and lucid argument based on an informed reading of the pertinent material.

Seminar Input (Participation): Your tutor will assess your engagement in seminar classes over the semester, specifically your level of preparedness, your participation rate and the quality of your contributions. Students, therefore, are not simply expected to attend seminars but to engage proactively in the discussions/activities. Seminars are sometimes arranged around a set of exercises that need be either completed prior to, or during, class. Though the tasks themselves are not formally graded, marks will be awarded according to the quality and extent of a student’s individual contribution.

Synthesis Examination [Learning Outcomes 1 – 6]: 

Students will be asked to address TWO general essay questions on the course in a specified time period. Each of the listed questions will be based on material covered in Module's I - IV and designed to a) assess students' knowledge and understanding of the key thematic issues and b) evaluate student's ability to communicate complex ideas in a lucid, precise and comprehensive fashion.

The workload will be one 2-hour workshop (interactive lecture) and one 1-hour student-led seminar per week (total of three contact hours per week) with the expectation of a further 7 non-contact hours per week of independent study.

Further expectations are as follows:

• Two 'Core Readings' on each topic to be completed weekly
• Periodic practical exercises for seminars
• 4000-words approximately in assessed written work
• A compulsory oral seminar presentation

EITHER 'Self & Society' and 'Introduction to Social Psychology' OR an equivalent approved by the course coordinator.

Students must have completed successfully ONE of the following courses:

• The Criminological Imagination: Theory & Understanding
• Controversies in Crime Control
• Dimensions of Crime: identifying and responding to offenders
• Doing Criminology

AT LEAST a basic grasp of either Sociology and/or Socio-Legal Studies.

Despite the interdisciplinary, and indeed familiar, nature of the subject-matter, the themes covered in this course are from a distinctively sociological perspective. Thus, students are recommended to familiarise themselves with concepts such as 'Risk Society', 'Securitization', 'Policing', 'Governance', 'Actuarialism', 'Globalization' and 'Consumerism'.

• Lyon, D., K. Haggerty and K. Ball (eds) (2012) Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, London: Routledge
• Smith, G.J.D. and M. French (2013) Key Concepts in Studies of Visibility and Regulation, London: Sage
• Smith, G.J.D. (2013) Opening the Black Box: Surveillance in Everyday Life, London: Routledge