From Protest to Surveillance – The Political Rationality of Mobile Media : Modalities of Neoliberalism

The book won the Surveillance Studies Network Book Prize 2014. The book argues that the mobile as a political technology in a broad sense facilitates the global export of the Western concept of individuality. This empowers those subjectivities and mindsets which can adapt to the communication regime of ubiquitous connectivity. Exemplifying two focal points – the use in protests and the surveillance of mobile phones – the book traces political trajectories of mobile phones, just as it provides deep insights into the actual practice of mobile phone use by activists and their surveillance. 50 semi-structured interviews with activists from countries including Brazil, India, Pakistan and Mexico offer a detailed and profound discussion of mobile phone success and failures in different struggles for justice. By situating mobile phone mass dissemination within a political rationality of neoliberalism and its political technology of governmentality, it shows how sovereign rule updates to catch up with the subject’s empowerment through mobile phones. The limits of mobile phone impact on activism are examined, and how it compromises its users when new sovereign means such as data retention or silent SMS surveillance are invoked. Cover Acknowledgment Contents 1 Introduction Part One: Play of Freedom 2 Governmentality Political Technologies: Pastoral Power Freedom as Source of Governing and as the Correlative of Security Government Programs: Techniques, Practices, Failures and Risks Empirical Statements and Governmental Studies Governmental Studies, Eurocentrism and ‘Postcolonial’ Societies 3 Mobile Protest Media: Resisting Government – Governing Resistance Power and Resistance From Resistance to Counter-Rationalities From Counter-Rationalities to Mobile Protest Media 4 Mobile Protest Media Case Study: The Lawyers’ Movement Pakistan and Musharraf The Dissemination of Mobile Phones in Pakistan The Protest Movement SMS, Online and Broadcast Media State of Surveillance in Pakistan during the Lawyers’ Movement and Anti-Surveillance Tactics The Clash of Rule Mobile Media as an Agent of Governmentality 5 Distributed Action and Centralized Surveillance Mobile Media Facilitates Collective Actions Layers of Distributed Action Part Two: The Liberal Paradox 6 Surveillance What is Surveillance? Big Brother’s Effects on Surveillance Studies Surveillance and Location The Concept of Institutionalized Mediation Panspectron and Surveillant Assemblage Interlude: Ricardo Dominguez on Transparent Surveillance 7 Re-Entry of Mobile Media Sovereignty Illiberal Government and the Surveillant Assemblage Episteme and Modalities of Neo-Sovereignty Registration of SIM Cards Blocking of Communication Data Retention as Neo-Sovereign Data Production A Panspectron Supplements Liberal Technologies 8 Mobile Surveillance Media Case Study Introduction: Section 129 of the German Criminal Code The MG Investigations Conclusions from the Documents Part Three: Bottom-Up Strategies 9 Necessities for Trusted Telecommunication Trust in Telecommunication 1: Securing Content Four Criteria for Trusted Communication Trust in Telecommunication 2: Securing Transaction Data Self-Governing Communication Infrastructures 10 Conclusion: Mobile Media Pushes the Liberal Paradox Appendices A Empirical Research about Protests: Ethical Considerations B Overview of Interviews C Index: Groups and Initiatives of the Interviewees Brazil India Japan Mexico Pakistan Philippines South Korea Spain UK USA Bibliography Glossary and Abbreviations The book argues that the mobile as a political technology in a broad sense facilitates the global export of the Western concept of individuality. This empowers those subjectivities and mindsets which can adapt to the communication regime of ubiquitous connectivity. Exemplifying two focal points - the use in protests and the surveillance of mobile phones - the book traces political trajectories of mobile phones, just as it provides deep insights into the actual practice of mobile phone use by activists and their surveillance. 50 semi-structured interviews with activists from countries including Brazil, India, Pakistan and Mexico offer a detailed and profound discussion of mobile phone success and failures in different struggles for justice. By situating mobile phone mass dissemination within a political rationality of neoliberalism and its political technology of governmentality, it shows how sovereign rule updates to catch up with the subject's empowerment through mobile phones. The limits of mobile phone impact on activism are examined, and how it compromises its users when new sovereign means such as data retention or silent SMS surveillance are invoked. Book jacket By situating mobile phone mass dissemination within a political rationality of neoliberalism, the book, based on 50 interviews with activists from 12 countries, shows how sovereign rule updates to catch up with the subject's empowerment through mobile phones, while the mobile facilitates the production of a governmentalizable subjectivity.