Surveillance Assemblage: Communication Technologies and Change

This article discusses the concept of surveillance assemblage and its real-life applications in various institutions and organizations. It also explores key terms and concepts related to surveillance assemblage.

Surveillance Assemblage 1
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND CHANGE
By (Name)
Name of the class (course)
Professor
Name of the school (university)
Date

Surveillance Assemblage 2
From the notes, surveillance assemblage is where people work and operate together in creating
new advanced systems and increasing their number. The aim is to increase surveillant capacity in
monitoring movement of people. It also maintains order. Its operation is characterized by
abstracting bodies of human being and separate them into flows (Barnard-Wills and Wells 2012).
Surveillant assemblage is a visualizing device and much used on body of human being. It leads
the society and develops it according to Foucault and might also be unfair to the society because
not all members will be prone to the condition. Orwell said that surveillance was a way of
maintaining a form of hierarchical social control.
The improvement of surveillance led to monitoring of people, behavior, images, groups, and
police also to maintain conformity and order by use of computer devices and systems which are
integrated together.
2. Key terms and concepts
 Surveillance- This is observing and monitoring activities to direct and protect people
(Pridmore and Zwicks 2011). This led to improvement of self-discipline which
contributed to productive development of modern lives. It also ensures privacy.
 Assemblage- It includes entities working and functioning together and they become
united. For example systems and people. They must not be confused as they are part of
state formation.
 Panopticon- It is an architectural design of a proposed prison. It was designed to oversee
prisoners in individual cells which were isolated. It was used for observation and
articulating their behavior. Guards monitored inmates from the central tower without
their consent.

Surveillance Assemblage 3
 Social theory- With the improvement of surveillance technology and increase of
computer technology, people are able to monitor the population of people.
Real life application
According to Lyon (2010), surveillance assemblage has been widely in various
institutions and organizations which include;
 Used by police to monitor investigate crime data from crime scenes. They also
use it to link forensics and fingerprints in their systems for investigations. This
helps police to get evidence of a crime with ease which would be used in a court
of law.
 Used to monitor pets by implanting chips on their body. They also show the pet’s
details and any other information connected to the pet such as its history. It can
also have details of ownership and medical data. They also tell the pet’s
whereabouts and movement. This means that they cannot be easily stolen or taken
away.
 Used to monitor the movement of employees in an organization and the activities
going on in the organization. This helps the organization to be more productive
and achieve its objectives by ensuring that quality work is done by employees and
effectively.
 Used in hospitals to protect and monitor infants by putting electronic bracelet on
their wrist or ankle. They are unique such that once activated, the nurses and
doctors can enter details and they give an alarm when a young one is taken close
to a protected area without a password.

Surveillance Assemblage 4
 Used in schools to thwarts intruders who might be trespassing or with bad
intention like stealing and also it helps to protect the insiders from any threats. It
also protects the students at night from any danger(Rich 2010).

Surveillance Assemblage 5
References
Barnard-Wills, D. and Wells, H., 2012. Surveillance, technology, and the everyday. Criminology
& Criminal Justice, 12(3), pp.227-237.
Lyon, D., 2010. Surveillance, power and everyday life. In Emerging digital spaces in
contemporary society (pp. 107-120). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pridmore, J. and Zwick, D., 2011. Marketing and the rise of commercial consumer
surveillance. Surveillance & Society, 8(3), pp.269-277.
Rich, E., 2010. Obesity assemblages and surveillance in schools. International Journal of
Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(7), pp.803-821.