SP Seminar Series

Aaron Doyle,
Associate Professor,
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton University;
"Rethinking Surveillance and the Mass Media: Beyond the Synopticon".

Friday, March 9th
Location: Mackintosh-Corry Hall, Room D411
Time: 12:00 to 1:30 pm

In various contexts, the mass media conduct surveillance, engender public support for it, help resist surveillance, or help the marginalized use surveillance itself as a tool of resistance. New media technologies allow intensified surveillance but also create openings for new forms of resistance. In this seminar, Professor Doyle considers various examples, including the use of CCTV footage on broadcast news and the recent trend towards posting cell-phone footage of official brutality on the YouTube website.

Aaron Doyle is an associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University. His books include Arresting Images: Crime and Policing in Front of the Television Camera, Insurance as Governance (with Richard Ericson and Dean Barry), Uncertain Business: Risk, Insurance and the Limits of Knowledge, and Risk and Morality (both with Richard Ericson). Other current research includes work on jails and remand centres, on the relations between risk, fear, blaming and punitiveness, and on gender and risky occupations.

Everyone welcome!