The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance

Abstract

"'This is a short, engagingly written academic trade-style book looking at aerial technologies-with particular emphasis on drones, followed by satellites, and some bits about balloons and kites-and how those technologies are/have been used for the public good, particularly by the activist and social movement crowd. The author argues that social movements regularly use technology to challenge powerful people and ideas, but that those technologies aren't limited to just social media. He demonstrates the ways different technologies (esp. drones and satellites) act as new tools in the air to transform politics on the ground. As the author writes in the book's introduction, "I wrote this book out of fascination and frustration. Original fascination with our ability to support social movements on the street gave way to frustration with the lack of theoretical resources in social movement theory and the skepticism of some of our movement allies on the ground. The core argument in this book is simple. Technology matters for politics, and it matters in important ways.' Choi-Fitzpatrick forces us to broaden our understanding of the technologies we see playing a role in politics and by extension, our perceptions and understandings of technologies that we may not have always associated with public good"--