Technologies of Control: Identity Cards and Media Censorship

摘要

Governments, companies and citizens use technologies in ways that visualize conduct, like identity cards do. But technologies may also be used to obscure information in order to steer or influence populations, as is the case with media censorship technologies. The books reviewed here each discuss one of these applications. In doing so they take on the challenge, as articulated by Kevin Haggerty, of examining contemporary surveillance technologies from a governmentality perspective (2006; also see Deleuze, 1992). Michel Foucault put forward the notion of governmentality as the 'art of government' (2000, p. 203). His work was mostly historical, however, focusing on the nineteenth century and earlier. Therefore, he did not answer the question of how contemporary ICTs contribute to the dynamics of freedom and control described by governmentality theory.