The Surveillance Web

The rise of CCTV and surveillance technologies has been one of the key developments in contemporary society, but its impact has often been analysed in a fragmented manner.This book addresses this issue by providing a detailed, micro-sociological account of the construction of a CCTV network in one English city. It differs from previous studies (which have concentrated on open street CCTV systems) in documenting and analysing the use of visual surveillance systems in a number of different locations and institutional settings, including the industrial workplace, shopping malls, high-rise housing schemes, and hospitals. It is concerned not just with abstract categories of OEgrand theory¹ but seeks to explain how people living in contemporary society experience these changes.The Surveillance Web situates the growth of visual surveillance systems in the context of many of the key concerns of theorists of modernity, and makes a key contribution to understanding the nature of the relationship between surveillance and society. Its starting point is to view the relationship between surveillance and society as a two way process: the book looks at both the social impact of visual surveillance systems, and at how the impact these technologies is shaped by existing social relations, political practice and cultural traditions.

Mike McCahill is a lecturer in criminology at the School of Comparative and Applied Social Science at the University of Hull, and lectured previously at the University of Sheffield.

List of figures and tables	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. ix
Introduction	p. xi
Theory and Method
Towards a contemporary theory of surveillance	p. 3
Time-space distanciation and the panopticon	p. 3
Post-Fordism and surveillance	p. 9
The risk society	p. 16
From theory to method	p. 22
The Rise of Visual Surveillance in Northern City
The story of Northern City	p. 33
The CCTV Challenge Competition	p. 39
The local media and CCTV	p. 52
CCTV in the Daily Echo	p. 54
Summary	p. 68
The surveillance web	p. 70
The human mediation of technology: limits to system integration	p. 84
Summary	p. 99
Three Case Studies of Visual Surveillance Systems
The panopticon mall	p. 103
The social construction of suspicion in two shopping malls	p. 103
Familiar names and familiar faces: personalised suspicion in a shopping mall	p. 113
Appropriate use of space in a shopping mall	p. 126
Managerial concerns	p. 138
Discussion	p. 146
Watching the workers	p. 149
Managing the threat to profitability: monitoring the external threat	p. 149
Managing the threat to profitability: monitoring the internal threat	p. 153
Improving worker performance	p. 159
Discussion	p. 162
Watching the tenants	p. 166
Background	p. 167
External versus internal dangers: the CCTV system	p. 168
The access control system	p. 172
The 'violence of poverty'	p. 178
Discussion: the 'context specificity' of visual surveillance systems	p. 181
Back to Theory
Back to theory	p. 185
The 'electronic panopticon'	p. 185
Governance and risk	p. 192
Post-Fordism, folklore and class solidarities	p. 195
Bibliography	p. 201
Index	p. 211
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Summary

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Table of Contents

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