Participatory Surveillance

Anders Albrechtslund, “ Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance” published by First Monday, points that online social networking is an chance for the whole public to reconsider the concept of surveillance. He clearly put forward to the audience three questions in the introduction “How can we conceptualize the practice of online social networking? What kind of discourse surrounds the practice of online social networking? What can we learn about surveillance through social networking?” to organize his article. Meanwhile he uses variety of souses from different researchers and philosophers and references many prominent studies and articles which relates to his scholarly. In order to explain the practice of online social networking, Albrechtslund focuses on three correlating aspects: space, place and time. He first interprets the meaning of Cyberspace which is a space of online activities, and it’s different than the physical internet. He continues to give some prominent examples like online communities and social networking site Myspace to strengthen our understanding of the Cyberspace, and weaken the users’ fear of using the social network …show more content…
Finding that “social network is a mixed world that related to both online and offline activities.” Then he focuses on the surveillance inherent to remind readers do not only seeing the dangers in online social networking. He finally argues that online social networking can be empowered base on its participatory characteristic. In the conclusion, Albrechtslund briefly explains his points to enhance the reader’s understanding of the