Video streaming and internalized surveillance

Abstract

This paper aims to develop knowledge about the complicated ways in which the modern individual uses surveillance (techniques) and the ways surveillance uses the individual. My observational analysis of a videostreaming community reveals the central role that surveillance plays in participating and becoming visible in an online environment. The results show that through disciplinary and lateral surveillance, participants produced context-defined I-narrations and formed themselves following the normative judgment of the environment. The same mechanism may be observed in other videostreaming social media environments and the modern social media-saturated society in general. This is an inconspicuous way to produce surveillant individualism. Contrary to the notion of exploitative participation, this study reveals the productive power of surveillance. My research suggests that disciplinary power is integrated into the everyday in online DIY environments and it creates the space and framework for communication in these environments. Surveillance practices offer empowering means for forming identities.