In this book David Lyon analyses the various contexts of surveillance activity and offers a balanced account of the influence electronic information systems have on the social order today.
Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgements. Part I: Situating Surveillance:.
1. Introduction: Body, Soul and Credit Card.
2. Surveillance in Modern Society.
3. New Surveillance Technologies.
4. From Big Brother to the Electronic Panopticon.
Part II: Surveillance Trends:.
5. The Surveillance State: Keeping Tabs on You.
6. The Surveillance State: From Tabs to Tags.
7. The Transparent Worker.
8. The Targetted Consumer.
Part III: Counter-Surveillance:.
9. Challenging Surveillance.
10. Privacy, Power, Persons.
11. Against Dystopia, Distance, Division.
12. Beyond Postmodern Paranoia.
Bibliography.
Index.
About the Author :
David Lyon is Professor and Head of Department of Sociology at Queen's University, Ontario, Canada. He is the author of several books including The Information Society (Polity, 1988).
Review :
"It is an extremely wide-ranging treatment of the monitoring of what used to be called private citizens in the world's 'advanced' societies. No other book offers such a comprehensive view of the literature on surveillance, nor does any other author on the subject surpass Lyon's ability to write engagingly and clearly." James B. Rule
"From a 'citizen consisting of body, soul, and passport' to a 'citizen consisting of body, soul and a credit card leads the wondrous transformation of men and women of our times, as well as of those who control, survey, monitor and supervise every episode of their life itinerary - both scrupulously recorded and vividly portrayed in David Lyon's new book. Knowing from Foucault that modernity was above all and from the start about surveillance, what can (and ought) be added to that knowledge by the experience of computerised and information-saturated society, prominent for the willing Cupertino of the surveilled with the surveillors? This seminal question Lyon asks; he also answers it comprehensively and in an utterly authoritative fashion."
--Zygmunt Bauman
"Lyon writes in a lively fashion and there are some excellent illustrations of his thesis. His arguments draw on a wide variety of literature and there is a refreshing attempt to combine empirical analysis with critical social theory. It is also a timely book."
--The Sociological Review
"It is a user-friendly textbook ... easily-digestible ... and judiciously balanced in it's argument."
--Sociology
"Wide-ranging sociological review ... the book is lucidly written ... and demands a response from the reader: definitely recommended."
--Environment and Planning
