LIS-S 404 Surveillance Studies
3 credits
- Prerequisite(s): None
- Delivery: Online
- Semesters offered: Spring (Check the schedule to confirm.)
Description
Data-driven surveillance can breach values, target individuals and disenfranchised groups, and infringe on expected rights. This course critically analyzes surveillance practices, their benefits and harms, and considers contextual norms, policies, and laws. Topics include user monitoring on social networking sites, biometrics, predictive analytics, and mass surveillance for national security and policing.
This advanced undergraduate course, “Surveillance Studies,” delves into the transdisciplinary field of surveillance studies with a specific focus on contemporary data-driven surveillance practices. Throughout the course, students critically examine the benefits and drawbacks of data-driven surveillance, exploring how these surveillant practices can empower influential actors and regimes that may harm individuals and communities. The curriculum adopts a socio-historical perspective to dissect various forms of surveillance, including sousveillance, coveillance, and dataveillance, all within the framework of prevailing norms, policies, and legal structures.
To accomplish these objectives, the course integrates theories and materials from diverse disciplines such as information science, communication, and data studies, as well as drawing insights from history, culture, policy, law, and political economy. The readings encompass a wide range of sources, including literature, films, news media, book chapters, and academic journal articles. Students are encouraged to approach the course materials with an open mind and engage with their peers’ viewpoints in a spirit of kindness and generosity, fostering a deeper understanding of the complex world of surveillance and data practices that shape modern society.
Program Learning Outcomes Supported
Instructors map their courses to specific Data Science Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs). Mapped program goals drive the design of each course and what students can expect to generally learn.
- A2: Data Literacy - Analyze the value and key role data plays in society in providing opportunities to expand knowledge, to innovate, and to influence.
- A4: Data Literacy - Assess values with respect to the use of data technologies.
- C4: Information Science - Understand the characteristics of various data types generated and used by a variety of disciplines, subdisciplines, research communities, and government organizations.
- C5: Information Science - Understand critical issues associated with the storage, backup, and security of data.
- D2: Data Ethics - Understand the relation between data, ethics, and society.
- D3: Data Ethics - Develop substantive arguments using ethical reasoning to suggest improvements to data-driven systems and practices.
- D4: Data Ethics - Differentiate between surveillance systems that promote and inhibit values.
- E1: Other Topics - Design, conduct, and write up results of research.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand various ideas, techniques, and technologies that constitute today’s surveillance practices and systems, considering their socio-historical trajectories and political-economic contexts.
- Analytically deconstruct surveillance technologies and systems to identify how interconnected data and algorithmic systems are integrated into existing social, political, and economic structures, shaping our self-perception and societal interactions.
- Explain how individuals engage differently in surveillance practices and experience surveillance systems with disparities based on their racial, class, and gender identities.
- Critically reflect on a specific surveillance practice in real-world contexts and recommend changes to maximize benefits while minimizing harm to individuals and societal values.
Profiles of Learning for Undergraduate Success (PLUS) Alignment
Instructors align their courses with the Profiles of Learning for Undergraduate Success. The profiles provide students various opportunities to deepen disciplinary understanding, participate in engaged learning, and refine what it means to be a well-rounded, well-educated person prepared for lifelong learning and success.
- P1.1 Communicator – Evaluates information
- P1.4 Communicator – Conveys ideas effectively
- P2.1 Problem Solver – Think critically
- P2.3 Problem Solver – Analyzes, synthesizes, and evaluates
- P3.1 Innovator – Investigates
- P3.3 Innovator – Confronts challenges
- P4.3 Community Contributor – Behaves ethically
- P4.4 Community Contributor – Anticipates consequences
Course Overview
Module 1: Introduction to the Course
- Course basics
- What is a surveillance society?
Module 2: Surveillance and Subjectivity
- Foucault’s power theory and the concept of panopticon
- The nature and operation of surveillance in a data society
Module 3: Surveillance Culture and Empowerment
- Participatory or social surveillance
- Social media and self-empowerment
Module 4: Datafication and Dataveillance
- How massive data collection occurs through cellphones
- What my cellphone data says about me
Module 5: Identity and Identification
- The state and identification system
- Bodies and biometrics
Module 6: Surveillance and Inequalities: Race, Gender, Class
- How surveillance reinforces unequal conditions of marginality
- The disparate impacts of surveillance
Module 7: Dataveillance Controversies – Research
- Analyze current issues on dataveillance
Module 8: Crime & Policing
- Historical research on body cams and CCTVs
- New technologies for crime intervention and social control
Module 9: Privacy and Power
- What is privacy – various frameworks
- Power, privacy, and dataveillance
Module 10: Counterveillance and Sousveillance
- Various concepts for anti-surveillance movements
- Unintended effects of anti-surveillance movements
Module 11: Final Project Preparation
- Individually tailored readings and study materials
Module 12: Healthcare and Biomedical Technologies
- Digital surveillance of patients and disabilities
- Biomedical technologies and personalized medicine
Module 13: School and Education
- Public education and schools as sites of surveillance
- Learning analytics and students’ privacy
Module 14: Surveillance in Art & Culture
- Contemporary artwork and culture from the perspective of surveillance studies
Module 15: Final Project Presentation
- Review and reflection
- Student presentations
Policies and Procedures
Please be aware of the following linked policies and procedures. Note that in individual courses instructors will have stipulations specific to their course.