transcript
Vol. 2, No. 1, January-July 2009
ISSN : 0974-0600
Homogenization, Gregg A. Payne 199-208
21 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet: Challenges
to 209-224
Democratic Communication, Lauren B. Movius
22 The transformation of political communication in Mexico
(1994-2006) 225-247
German Espino
23 No More Bowling Alone: When social capital goes digital
248-263
Anders Svensson
24 I am P/Ninoy: Filipino Diaspora, Technology and Network
Nationalism 264-278
Reggy Capacio Figer
25 Manipulation, Informative Control and Iraq War, Aurora Labio
Bernal 279-288
26 President Michelle Bachelet and the Chilean Media : A
Complicated Affair 289-312
Claudia Bucciferro
27 The Function of Blogs in Democratic Discourse, Ming Kuok LIM
313-326
l
Professor Naren Chitty AM, with
Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir,
Governor of New South Wales,
after the investiture ceremony for the Order of Australia at
Government House, Sydney, on May 6, 2009
The International Team of GCRA Congratulates
Professor Naren Chitty, Founder President of GCRA
For winning the award of
“Order of Australia” for
“Services to education, particularly in the field of international
communication as a researcher and academic, and to a range of
professional associations”.
(January to June 2009)
Mohammad Sahid Ullah Associate Professor
Department of Communication and Journalism, Chittagong University
Chittagong-4331, Bangladesh
Phone: 88-01554-352573, Mobile:88-01819-333539, Fax: 88-031-726310
Email: ullah_sahid@yahoo.co.uk
Special issue on
Media and Democratization
and News Content Homogenization
Gregg A. Payne, Ph.D. Department of Communication Studies, Chapman
University
1 University Drive Orange, CA 92866, USA 01.714.997.6815,
gpayne@chapman.edu
Abstract
This paper is, in part, a response to Gandy’s (1982) recognition of
a need to go beyond conventional borders of agenda setting theory,
to examine who sets the media agenda, for what purposes, and with
what consequences. Conventional conceptual explications of
gatekeeping and agenda setting are revisited, and substantive
modifications proposed. Theoretical linkages between the two are
examined, together with the consequences for homogenization of mass
media news content. A general content homogenization model is
proposed that provides an explanatory and predictive framework for
news analysis; irrespective of dominate social, political, and
economic ideology. It is argued that that gatekeeping controls over
the agenda setting process produce a homogenized news product that
curtails opportunities for robust public discourse. McCombs
contention that agenda setting is an inadvertent by product of the
mass communication process is problematized (2006).
Key words : gatekeeping, agenda setting, media, news,
homogenization, information
Introduction
This paper makes the argument that mass media news content is a
product of a gatekeeping hierarchy whose dictates determines news
frames (Ghanem, 1997, Takeshita, 1997), specify exemplars
associated with priming, and imbue media and public agendas with
the issues and attributes that generate first and second-level
agenda-setting effects. The architecture of the gatekeeping process
and its agenda-setting outcomes, it is argued, result in
homogenization of mass media content, the marginalization of
minorities, curtailment of expression of dissident viewpoints,
naturalization of a distorted reality, and restricted dialectical
possibilities available for public discourse. The discussion here
is, in part, a response to Gandy’s recognition of the need to look
beyond agenda setting to reveal the forces that set the media
agenda, the purposes for which it is set, and the resulting
influence on the distribution of social power and values (Gandy,
1982, p. 7). In general, discussions of the media agenda treat the
phenomenon as a spontaneous event, lacking any antecedent
generative force. In fact, the antecedents are several, a number of
which are identified here. It is also suggested that there is
little evidence to support McCombs contention (2004, pp. 11, 19)
that agenda setting is an inadvertent by product of mass
Journal of Global Communication, Vol2., No.1, Jan.-July 2009 pp.
199-208
A General Process Model of Content Homogenization (figure 1) is
advanced. The model reflects a theoretical synthesis of gatekeeping
and agenda setting processes in the production of largely
undifferentiated, conservatively-biased mass communication content.
It is argued that the model is subject to validation through
hypothesis testing examining relationships postulated by the model.
In addition to authenticating the proposed model, the expectation
is that empirically- based research will have substantive
implications for advancement of agenda setting theory, and its
relation to news content homogenization.
For those whose primary interests lay elsewhere, a brief lexicon of
relevant terms may be helpful. Framing is the ideological lens
through which environmental phenomena are viewed in the
construction of news. Priming is psychological construct suggesting
media content makes salient for news consumer’s issues and their
attributes that are subsequently reflexively consulted as
typifications (Zillmann, 2002; Willnat, 1997). Issues are events or
activities featured in news coverage, attributes specific qualities
of the issues. The notion of first-level agenda setting asserts
that news content determines what people think about; second-level
effects are located in how people think about what they think
about.
While the theoretical work and derivative research by US scholars
has produced a voluminous literature related to largely to US news
production, the global application to a variety of social,
political, and economic circumstances has gone largely unexamined.
The present paper demonstrates their relevance to news generation
under a variety of ideological conditions, and addresses the
oppressive consequences of what Schiller (1996, p. 87) has called
the tyranny of gatekeepers. The global relevance of extant
theoretical and empirical work is suggested by the influence of
mass media in cultivating values, beliefs, attitudes, norms, and
behaviors already present in a society, stabilizing and reinforcing
conventional beliefs and behaviors, and, in the process,
homogenizing public opinion, irrespective of the cultural context
(Gerbner, Gross, and Signorielli,1986).
While the analysis presented here argues for the global
applicability of a content homogenization model, the illustrative
exemplar employed involves the news product of US media. The
contention is that mass media embedded in capitalist economic
systems are profit- driven enterprises that subordinate the
political welfare of nations to revenue generation (Bagdikian,
2004, 2000; Shiller, 1996; Herman and Chomsky, 1988; Jencks,1987).
More broadly, it is asserted that dominate ideology under any set
of political, social, and economic conditions will dictate news
content advantaging elites, without reference to the needs of the
citizenry.
Gatekeeping
Ruminations on gatekeeping typically conjure mental images of
White’s (1950) wire service editor, a conscientious employee
located somewhere in lower strata of a management hierarchy,
diligently engaged in vetting wire service copy, selecting some for
publication and rejecting the rest, based upon a subjective,
idiosyncratic assessment of news value. Like White’s Mr. Gates,
gatekeepers historically, have been cast as relatively low-level,
well-intentioned functionaries in
202 Information Control and Imperiled Public Discourse: A General
Process....
Such a perspective, however, tends to both sanitize and trivialize
a set of relationships that are considerably more complex and
insidious. Unaccounted for is a multi-layered process driven by
elite priorities that produces a homogenized, information-deficient
public agenda hospitable to dominate ideology, and delimiting
topics and perspectives available for debate.
Primary-level Gatekeeping
Gatekeeping is a tripartite process. Primary-level gatekeeping
involves an external locus of control residing with social,
political, and economic power centers and their individual and
institutional spokespersons, who control information available to
the media. Among the consequences is establishment of a media
agenda and a macro-level frame stipulating an acceptable
ideological context for news presentation. The governing
aristocracy includes what McChesney has referred to as homogenized
ownership (2004, p. 47). There is a vested interest in making
available to the media and, ultimately, the public only information
supportive of the status quo, and, in both topical and ideological
content, not inimical to corporate well being.
Secondary-level Gatekeeping
Secondary-level gatekeeping is an internal function involving
publishers and senior editors, whose content decisions reflect the
priorities of primary-level gatekeepers, and the dominate cultural
viewpoint (Paul and Elder, 2006, p. 10; Gans, 2003, pp. 24, 198;
Gitlin, 2003, pp. 5,40, 80, 95, 274; Bagdikian, 2000, pp. 17-18).
Decisions made at this level translate into events and activities
selected for coverage, and treatments that constitute micro-level
framing, achieved, in part, by careful selection of sources
expounding elite perspectives (Herman and Chomsky, 1988). The
priming process prioritizing for audiences the content of the
media-produced public agenda is initiated here. Involved is a two
dimensional decision-making process. In the first step, choices are
made that produce selective coverage of environmental phenomena
extracted from a universe of possibilities. (Kim and McCombs, 2007;
Sie-Hill, Dietram, Shanahan, 2002; Nelson and Kinder, 2001;
Scheufele, 2000; Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007). The second step
involves decisions about how the news is played. The choices made
dictate the prominence of issues within the larger context of the
news product, and are central to establishing salience in the
public agenda. For both print and electronic media, the
consequences of the decisions are observable in the placement of
stories, coupled with space or time afforded them.
Tertiary-level Gatekeeping
Priming and framing find their final, micro-level configuration in
the product of tertiary- level gatekeepers, whose function is to
generate content. Their contribution to homogenization is a
consequence of top-down pressure, and their social and economic
location among the middle and upper-middle classes (McChesney,
2004, pp. 98-137). News room socialization (Breed, 1955), personal
predilections and a survival instinct compel compliance with
dictates of superiors. The framing and priming effects of primary
and secondary-level gatekeeping influences are realized in the
rendering of news. The homogenizing consequences of the top down
coercive
Gregg A. Payne 204
Agenda Setting
Content admitted by gatekeepers for publication or broadcast is
taken to have multiple agenda-setting impacts. It sets the public
agenda that establishes both issue and attribute salience, the
first a generalized account of some event or activity, the second
specifying selected qualities of the issue (Takeshita, 1997). It
also has first-level agenda setting effects, dictating at some
level, what people think about as a consequence of mass media
engagement, and second-level influences affecting how people think
as a product of news framing by the gatekeeping establishment
(McCombs, 2004; McCombs, M., Llamas, P., Lopez-Escobar, E., and
Rey, F., 1997; McLeod, J., Becker, L., and Byrnes, J., 1974;
McCombs, and Shaw, 1972; Rosenberry, and Vicker, 2009, pp. 150-153;
McCombs, 2004, pp. 86-97; Nelson, T, and Kinder, D. 1996; Pan, Z,
and Kosicki, 1993; Scheufele, D, 1999, 2007).
From this perspective agenda setting is a product of gatekeeping,
and an intervening variable between gatekeeping and content
homogenization. The seminal theoretical and empirical work in
agenda setting originated with the Chapel Hill study executed by
McCombs and Shaw (1972). The study, executed during the 1968 US
presidential elections, investigated links between news content and
voter perceptions of the most compellingly important issues of the
time. It revealed significant correlations between media and public
agendas, and produced evidence, contrary to that then prevailing
(Klapper, 1960; Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee, 1954; Lazarsfeld,
Berelson, and Gaudet, 1948), that media content had profound
effects. In the intervening decades, there has been considerable
theoretical extension and intension growing out of research
examining relationships between media and public agendas in a
variety of social and other contexts. Effects in relation to
differing audience characteristics have been studied, as have
conditions, events, and people influencing the agenda (McCombs,
Shaw, and Weaver, 1997).
While the media agenda is defined here in terms of information made
available by elites to media practitioners, operationalization of
the public agenda has been preoccupied traditionally with counting
the frequency with which certain matters are reported, the ways in
which they are framed or contextualized, and the presumptive
influence on priming, or the salience of those matters in the
public mind (McCombs, 2004, p. 87). Moreover, the conventional
focus has been on first-level agenda setting, which is assumed to
make salient an attitude object (Griffin, 2006, p. 401). The
relatively recent conceptual extension of agenda setting to
accommodate second-level effects has not adequately accounted for a
multidimensional gatekeeping hierarchy. Second- level agenda
setting suggests a covert transmission of ideology, conceding the
long-denied possibility that media content may not only determine
what is thought about, but also how salient issues are thought
about (McCombs, Llamas, Lopez-Escobar, and Rey, 1997). The
concession, coupled
205 Information Control and Imperiled Public Discourse: A General
Process....
Content Homogenization
Content homogenization is a product of the relationships between
gatekeeping and agenda setting. Conceptually, content
homogenization, as the term is used here, suggests that events and
topics selected for news coverage and the ideological perspectives
with which they are infused, provide little in the way of
diversity, contribute little to a free marketplace of ideas, and
are inherently hegemonic (Gitlin, 2003, p. 211, 271). They reflect
the priorities of the relative few who dominate news production
operations, including the very rich, chief executives, the
corporate rich, senior members of the military, and the political
directorate, all representing a relatively monolithic presence in
their acceptance of a common set of values, beliefs, attitudes,
perspectives, norms, rules, and behaviors (Mills, 1956; Gans, 1980,
p. 206-213). While the structural relationships and relative power
vested in those social categories may vary from country to country
and culture to culture, occupants of the categories inhabit the
same castes that comprise media and other elites everywhere. Their
machinations as superordinate gatekeepers dictate first the media
agenda and, ultimately, the public agenda, with their ideological
sensibilities reflected in the news product (Schudson, 2005; Gitlin
2003). Among the consequences is control over the construction of
social reality, and the capacity to eliminate conflicting
perspectives (Berger and Luckmann, 1966, p. 123, 128).
Homogenization of news themes, topics, and treatments, neither in
the US nor globally, can be explained exclusively by reference to
either media time or space constraints, or predispositions of news
workers occupying subordinate roles in a hierarchal gatekeeping
structure.
Theoretical Links
The conceptual explications proffered here show gatekeeping to
consist of three interrelated tiers, and agenda setting to be a
multi-tiered process derivative of gatekeeping structures and
processes. Additionally, framing is shown to be a hierarchal,
dichotomous phenomenon consisting of macro and micro-level framing
predictive of cognitive structures associated with priming. All
contribute to a calculus of power and control. Macro framing is
conceptualized as the editorial process of accommodating news to
elite ideology (Gitlin, 1980). Micro framing, circumscribed by the
ideological parameters of the macro frame, accommodates transient
exigencies in the evolution of news. Priming suggests a heuristic
psychological process in which media references prompt recall of
previously acquired information (Ghanem, 1997; Wilnat, 1997;
Zillmann, 2002; Roskos-Ewoldsen, D., Roskos-Ewoldsen, B., and
Carpentier, F. (2002). Zillmann (p. 27) advances the notion of a
representativeness heuristic, arguing that media exposure results
in an inductive process that generalizes from samples of events to
populations of events. The relationship between content
homogenization and priming is located in issue and attribute
agendas. The first,
Gregg A. Payne 206
Clarifying relationships involving the various levels of
gatekeepers, levels of agenda setting, and agenda types is critical
to an improved understanding of homogenizing influences both on and
of media content. It is clear that primary-level gatekeepers have a
vested interest in framing a media agenda that produces
secondary-level effects consistent with the dominate ideology. The
news production process involves micro-level framing at the
secondary gatekeeping level, and priming at all levels. The public
agenda is realized in content choices of secondary-level
gatekeepers and treatments of tertiary-level gatekeepers, resulting
in first-level and second-level effects consistent with objectives
of primary-level gatekeepers and the media agenda.
Ultimately, both public and media agendas reflect a hegemonic
confluence of external and internal interests, driven by the
prerogatives of power and perquisites of the powerful. The
consequences are typified by the conservative positions of those
occupying senior status in the gatekeeping hierarchy and subscribed
to as a matter of both organizational efficacy and self
preservation by subordinates. The resulting insular and parochial
news product, characterized by a mendacious topical, thematic, and
ideological sterility, imposes on consumers a restricted set of
perceptual and cognitive filters. The outcome of the consequent
information deprivation suggests media-imposed social control
(Noelle-Neumann,1984).
Consequences
The empirical implications of the reconceputalizations suggested
here are several. They provide space required to move away from the
assumptions associated with traditional constructions of
gatekeeping and agenda setting. Operationalization of the various
levels of gatekeeping makes it possible to assess their relative
impacts on news gathering and presentation, and relationships with
priming and framing. In particular, it becomes possible to examine
influences on agenda setting of gatekeeping structures under a
variety of social, economic, and political conditions, to examine
the relative influences of a hierarchally constituted gatekeeping
establishment on subordinate gatekeeping roles, and how the
consequences comport with a range of normative mass media
theories
From the relationships modeled, several theoretically useful
propositions emerge:
1) Media content is a product of economic, social, and political
power exerted through primary-level gatekeeping.
2) Primary-level gatekeeping is committed to maintenance of the
status quo.
3) Protecting the status quo is linked to news content reflecting
the dominate ideology.
4) The application of power produces among secondary and
tertiary-level gatekeepers a consensual definition of news
consistent with that of primary-level gatekeepers.
5) The influence of the dominant ideological perspective is
primarily attributable to second-
207 Information Control and Imperiled Public Discourse: A General
Process....
6) Secondary and tertiary-level gatekeepers produce a public agenda
supportive of the media agenda.
7) The public agenda is formulated as a homogenized news product
consistent with dominate political, economic, and social
ideologies.
Conclusion
The model and these propositions suggest a range of empirically
testable hypotheses germane to examination of news production
structures, and their impacts on news content under a global
assortment of political, economic, and social conditions. The
General Content Homogenization Model provides a foundation for
empirical analysis of media as cultural artifacts in relation to
structure, function and bias arising out of dominate ideological
commitments. Additionally, it enables examination of relative
influences of multiple, sometime conflicting, and ideological
positions. An example can be located in US media attempts to
reconcile the schizoid tension between satisfying expectations of a
social contract in which a free press is expected to contribute to
development, maintenance, and repair of democracy, and the
competing, and more compelling, profit production mandates of a
capitalist economy.
One of the consequences is that the variegated subtleties and
complexities inherent in a free marketplace of ideas, and
indispensable to robust public discourse, are collapsed into a
pedestrian, monochromatic narrative where democracy and capitalism
become isomorphic, with democratic ends attainable only through
capitalistic means. Potential alternative realities are left
unexamined, and consequently absent from civil discourse. What
emerge are narrowly circumscribed media and public agendas that, at
both primary and secondary levels, are antithetical to democratic
process, but may produce precisely the outcomes coveted in
authoritarian political circumstances.
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211 Information Control and Imperiled Public Discourse: A General
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Lauren B. Movius
Annenberg School of Communication, USC 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles
90089
Cell: 714.362.1328, Email: lmovius@usc.edu
Abstract
The Internet represents a medium for both liberty and control and
the Internet is assumed to have an inherent democratic nature and
be a force for democracy. However, undemocratic uses of the
Internet exist as well, even by democratic regimes of the West. The
Internet can be used as a tool of control and dominance; it can
increase government power, enhancing government ability to monitor
its citizens and potentially control individuals. This article
examines national security and individual’s privacy from U.S.
government surveillance, in the context of the Internet post
September 11, 2001. However, government control of the Internet is
not simply a response to or a result of the terrorist attacks of
9/11; the U.S. government has always tried to increase its control
over information and technology. The article documents several
examples of attempts to control the Internet and communications
prior to 9/11 and argues that the events of 9/11 provided the
justification necessary to enact legislation to broaden
surveillance powers. The article then discusses how surveillance
technologies work and examines the key actors involved in
surveillance
Key words: Internet, privacy, communication, democracy, dominance,
surveillance, democracy
Introduction
The Internet represents a medium for both liberty and control. When
the Internet first emerged, many celebrated its potential for
autonomy and freedom, since governments could seemingly do little
to control the borderless network (Barlow: 1996). The Internet is
seen by many as a means of freedom of expression and a “kind of
democratization of access for all” (Mathiason: 2009: xiv). The
Internet is assumed to have an inherent democratic nature and be a
force for democracy. Indeed, a link between technological advance
and democratization remains a strong assumption in popular thinking
(Kalathil & Boas: 2003). However, undemocratic uses of the
Internet exist as well, even by democratic regimes of the West
(Vegh: 2006). The Internet can be used as a tool of control and
dominance; it can increase government power, enhancing governments’
ability to monitor its citizens and potentially control
individuals. Therefore, loss of privacy and anonymity on the
Internet is an area of concern in need of investigation and
analysis.
The development of the Internet as a networked global
communications medium and the extent to which people use it have
produced a qualitative change in the nature of communications, and
in the nature and amount of information which is exposed to
interception and surveillance.
As a result of the digital revolution, many aspects of life are now
captured and stored in digital form. Indeed, it is rare for a
person in the modern world to avoid being listed in numerous
databases (Diffie & Landau: 1998). Much of this translates into
individual’s privacy from companies in the context of privacy and
economic efficiency (Movius & Krup: 2009; Varian: 1996).
However, focusing on the U.S. context, this article examines
national security and individuals’ privacy from government
surveillance, in the context of the Internet post September 11,
2001 (9/11).
Surveillance is not new, and by focusing on post 9/11, it is not to
suggest that this period represent a new type of surveillance. As
will be discussed below, there is a long history of government
surveillance. New technology, however, has led to new forms of
surveillance, and has also attributed to the rise of surveillance
studies over the last two decades (Lyon: 2006).
The period since 9/11 is of particular concern, since this
legitimated the expansion of surveillance (Ball & Webster:
2003). Indeed, 9/11 “encouraged an alignment of actors,
organizations, debates and viewpoints, from different policy and
academic spheres, all of which featured surveillance as a germane
issue. Accordingly, national security was constructed as relevant
to public and private sector positions on… Internet security…with
privacy issues temporarily taking a back seat” (Ball & Webster:
2003:9).
In order to understand the significance of 9/11 to Internet
surveillance, we must consider the situation prior to 9/11. Thus,
the article first discuses U.S. government attempts to conduct
surveillance or to control the Internet prior to 9/11, in order to
support the argument that surveillance post 9/11 was not expanded
simply to increase security, but to increase government control.
Second, I will discuss why the Internet has been historically
difficult to control due to technological and institutional
factors. Third, I will analyze how the U.S. government sought to
overcome these technological and institutional challenges by
enacting new legislation, notably the Patriot Act, and through the
use of new technology. I argue that 9/11 provided a window of
opportunity to enact these changes, and the U.S. government used
social alarm to pass legislation. Fourth, I discuss some limits of
technology. Fifth, I consider the effects of increased surveillance
and question whether it helps in reducing terrorism and increasing
security.
Attempts to Control Communication Prior to 9/11
Governments have always sought to control communication and
information. Indeed, “control of information has been the essence
of state power throughout history, and the U.S. is no exception”
(Castells: 2001:169). The U.S. government, as all governments,
seeks to maximize their control of communications under limits of
institutional constraints. Government control of the Internet is
not simply a response to or a result of the terrorist attacks of
9/11; and there are several examples of government surveillance
programs that have existed well before 9/11.
U.S. government surveillance has been well documented through the
release of documents under Freedom of Information Act requests.
Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Walls (1990) document the scope of
the FBI Counter Intelligence Program acts of surveillance on
various domestic social movements between 1957 and 1974, and Sasha
Costanza-Chock (2004) provides an historical overview of state
surveillance of social movements in the US. The Senate
investigation
213 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
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known as the Church Committee investigated the FBI Counter
Intelligence program and other programs of surveillance during the
1970’s. This investigation revealed details of “domestic
intelligence activities [that] threaten to undermine our democratic
society” (Church Committee: 1976:1). The Committee recommended that
the “CIA, NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the armed
services be precluded, with narrow and specific exceptions, from
conducting intelligence activities within the United States, and
that their activities abroad be so controlled as to minimize the
impact on the rights of Americans” (Diffie & Landau: 1998:121).
Since these recommendations, limits on surveillance have been
eroded, and this process began well before 9/ 11.
Turning to electronic communication, federal agencies had legal
powers to monitor e-mail and computers well before the Patriot Act.
Two sources of authority for wiretapping exist in the US and set
the framework for U.S. electronic-surveillance laws: the Federal
Wiretap Act, also referred to as Title III, and the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. The Federal Wiretap
Act was adopted in 1968 and expanded in 1986. The Electronic
Communications Privacy Act of 1986 updated Title III and the FISA
to apply to electronic communications, and allowed for “roving
wiretaps” - wiretaps with unspecified locations, where the
government can tap any phone or Internet account that a suspect
uses. Under the Electronic Privacy Act, law enforcement needs a
search warrant, and not a more stringent wiretap warrant, to access
stored communication. This authority to use a roving wiretap was
granted in 1986 and broadened in 1999. The Patriot Act added roving
tap authority to the FISA and made a number of significant changes
that have led to an increase in FISA investigations (Jaeger,
Bertot, & McClure : 2003).
In 2007, wiretap applications under Title III increased 20 percent
from 2006. The Administrative Office of the United States Courts
publishes annual Wiretap Reports on wiretap activity of federal,
state, and local police, and there has been a nearly steady
increase in the use of wiretaps from 1994 - 2007, with applications
rarely being denied. It is important to note that Wiretap Reports
only include data for Title III electronic surveillance and do not
include intercepts regulated by FISA. Since the early 2000s, FISA
wiretap orders constitute a majority of federal wiretaps (Rule:
2007).
In addition to the above examples of government surveillance, the
U.S. Congress and U.S. Justice Department attempted to gain legal
control of the Internet through the 1996 Communications Decency
Act. The rationale for the Act was that it was necessary to protect
children from sexual indecency on the Internet. Here, we see how
social alarm - the need to protect our children from sexual
predators and indecent material on the Internet - was used in
proposing legislation. Many people saw this as the “first great
attack on cyberspace” (Goldsmith & Wu: 2006: 19). This law was
seen as an attack because it threatened the fact that the Internet
was open to both children and adults without any discrimination,
and this openness was seen as the Internet’s strength. The Act was
ruled unconstitutional in 1997 by the Supreme Court in a vote of 7
to 2, since it was overly broad and could result in the chilling of
speech unrelated to protecting minors.
Lauren B. Movius 214
Year Wiretap Applications Authorized Denied
1994 1154 1154 0 1995 1058 1058 0 1996 1150 1149 1 1997 1186 1186 0
1998 1329 1327 2 1999 1350 1350 0 2000 1190 1190 0 2001 1491 1491 0
2002 1359 1358 1 2003 1443 1442 0 2004 1710 1710 0 2005 1774 1773 1
2006 1839 1,839 0 2007 2208 2208 0
Thus, it is not correct to view 9/11 as generating surveillance
measures and a completely new surveillance landscape. Instead,
there is a history of surveillance, with surveillance systems being
broadened after 9/11. Lyon contends that surveillance societies
already existed in many “democratic” countries, and that 9/11
produced “socially negative consequences that hitherto were the
stuff of repressive regimes and dystopian novels or movies” (2003:
15). The events of 9/11 and the “war on terror” justified these
measures. Before examining attempts by the U.S. government to
control the Internet after 9/11, an understanding of the
characteristics and obstacles of controlling the Internet may be
useful.
Control of the Internet
When the Internet first appeared, it was widely believed that the
Internet could challenge the authority of the nation state, and
that because of its borderless nature, it lay beyond government
control (Barlow: 1996; Johnson & Post: 1996). The co-founder of
MIT’s Media lab Nicholas Negroponte argued, “The Internet cannot be
regulated. It’s not that laws aren’t relevant, it’s that the
nation-state is not relevant” (Higgins & Azhar: 1996). Unlike
other networks, such as a telephone network, the Internet is not
dependent on a central server. Instead, the Internet is a network
of networks. There is no single central authority on the Internet.
There is a decentralized routing system that was designed to carry
messages from point to point, even if intermediate exchanges are
blocked. As John Gilmore famously stated, “The net interprets
censorship as damage, and routes around it.”
The lack of centralized control on the Internet is due to
historical factors (Abbate: 1999), as well as the Internet’s
technical architecture. Let us now consider why network
architecture matters and how it made the Internet initially
difficult to control. Design features do not necessarily
215 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
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come about because they represent the best technical option.
Instead, the architectural design of an information system is a
choice, and political and economic forces shape these choices. The
founders of the Internet self-consciously built a network with open
architecture through the “end-to-end” principle (Abbate: 1999).
Thus, the Internet founders “embraced a design that distrusted
centralized control. In effect, they built strains of American
libertarianism…into the universal language of the Internet”
(Goldsmith & Wu: 2006: 23).
The end-to-end principle has evolved from the original notion of
where to put and not to put functions in a communication system
(Saltzer, Reed, & Clark: 1984), and it has come to address
issues such as maintaining openness, maintaining user choice, and
increasing reliability (Kempf & Austein: 2004). The end-to-end
principle “grew over time to become a (if not the) foundation
principle of the Internet architecture” (Kempf & Austein:
2004). Because of the end-to-end nature of the Internet,
intelligence, as well as control, is decentralized. Messages on the
Internet are broken up into packets of data, and the network routes
them via the most efficient path, regardless of the packets’
content or origin. Thus, the network is said to be “dumb”, and
intelligence lies on the edges of the network.
In addition to the technological architecture, the Internet
developed in the United States, and is thus under the
constitutional protection of the First Amendment. The First
Amendment limits governmental ability to regulate speech, and
everything is potentially “speech” on the Internet. As discussed
above, the U.S. Supreme Court Case ACLU v. Reno found the
Communications Decency Act to be a violation of the First
Amendment. This case afforded Internet related matters the
strongest First Amendment protection.
While the Internet represented a site of freedom and liberty based
on the aforementioned technological and institutional grounds, new
technologies and regulations challenged these obstacles to control
of the Internet. The U.S. government attempted to circumvent such
limits with: first, changes in legislation using social alarm, and
second, developments in new technologies.
New Legislation: U.S. Patriot Act
After 9/11, the U.S. government called for increased surveillance
in order to protect against future terrorist attacks. The key
initiative that emerged to augment government access to information
was the U.S. Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was introduced less than
a week after 9/ 11 and signed by President Bush and passed into law
on October 26, 2001. The Patriot Act qualitatively extended the
government’s electronic-surveillance capabilities. The Act allows
the U.S. government to investigate both citizens and non-citizens
and to engage in surveillance, with many elements effecting
communication on the Internet, leading to increasing surveillance
and control of the Internet.
The Act threatens civil liberties and potentially provides
government power to suppress free exchange of knowledge. With civil
rights and communication rights in the digital environment being
eroded, dissemination of electronic material may be inhibited
through censorship, and interaction in the public sphere may be
limited (Ó Siochrú: 2005). There are considerable implications for
online privacy. For example, the Patriot Act increases the ability
of law enforcement to authorize installation of pen registers and
trap and trace devices, and to authorize
Lauren B. Movius 216
Use of Social Alarm
Increased surveillance and the use of high-technology surveillance
have increased in the context of the new global politics of
terrorism. Events such as 9/11 are referred to as “trigger crimes”
by scholars (Innes: 2001), who argue that such events allow for the
introduction of new technologies with less public debate than
usual, since such technologies are perceived to be a necessary
response. Thus, the events of 9/11 led to a “surveillance surge”
(Ball & Webster: 2003), and they legitimated existing trends.
For example, many of the provisions of the Patriot Act relating to
electronic surveillance were not new, and were proposed before
9/11, when they were subject to much criticism and debate (EPIC,
2005a). The Justice Department has been lobbying for the power to
conduct “secret searches” long before the 9/11 attacks took place
and terrorism became a justification for enacting such legislation.
Furthermore, the Act was proposed only a week after 9/11, and it
has been argued that “details of this complex and far-reaching
expansion of investigative powers were prepared and ready to be put
forward before the events of September 11 — as surveillance
interests awaited an auspicious moment” (Rule: 2007: 55).
With the events of 9/11, this social alarm factor allows government
to do things that they would otherwise not be allowed to do, as the
enactment of legislation and introduction of new technology is met
with less public debate. In 2000 when the FBI’s Carnivore program,
which scanned and recorded network traffic and “wiretapped” the
Internet (King & Bridis: 2000), became public, there were
criticisms that the system could get more information than the
government was entitled to under a limited subpoena used for pen
registers and trap-and-trace devices. Carnivore was extremely
controversial, and there was a great deal of concern expressed by
members of Congress, who stated their intent to examine the issues
and draft appropriate legislation (EPIC: 2005b). Former Attorney
General Reno announced that issues surrounding Carnivore would be
considered by a Justice Department review panel and that its
recommendations would be made public. That review, however, was not
completed prior to 9/11. As a result, Congress did not have any
findings and recommendations when it enacted the Patriot Act. Thus,
the 9/11 terrorist attacks provided social alarm and a way for
government to thwart concerns of Carnivore that were predominant
prior to 9/11.
The use of social alarm is exemplified by the administration’s
argument for the necessity of the Patriot Act. Without appropriate
policy responses to the terrorist attack, the argument goes, there
would be serious consequences for national security and public
safety. Attorney General Ashcroft warned that further terrorist
acts were imminent, and that Congress could be blamed for such
attacks if it failed to pass the bill immediately. Congressional
leaders warned that the legislation was the only way to protect
against terrorism and that the Act had to be passed within days,
which it was.
217 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
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Technologies of Surveillance
The above discussion of the end-to-end principle of the Internet
focused on how this design feature made it difficult to exert
control over the network. The end-to-end principle is one of the
reasons why the Internet has been so successful (Auerbach: 2004).
However, the end-to-end principle also enables harmful activities.
There is a constant tension between the need to control or limit
harmful activities, while not compromising the Internet’s core
architecture.
As the Internet grew in scale and importance, several factors
challenged the end-to-end principle (Clark & Blumenthal: 2000).
The Internet was developed by a community of users. Trust between
end users, and authentication of end nodes, was not a concern, and
it was assumed that end nodes would cooperate in order to achieve
mutually beneficial action, per the end-to-end principle implies.
However, with the growth in users of the Internet and its turn to a
commercial nature, motivations of some end users are not ethical,
and may include attacks on the network or on individual end points.
Another challenge to the end-to-end principle may come if
governments or corporate network administrators seek to interpose
between two parties in an end-to-end conversation. For example, a
government may claim the right to wiretap, thereby inserting itself
in a communication between two end nodes. Censorship or
surveillance on the Internet violates the end-to-end principle,
since the principle states that intelligence should be at
end-points, and not in the middle of the network. Control in the
middle of a network, such as China’s “Great Firewall”, instead of
control at the user level, is argued to limit growth of the
network, since the end-to-end principle has been attributed with
rapid growth of the Internet throughout the world (Deibert,
Palfrey, Rohozinski & Zittrain: 2008).
Thus, as the Internet developed, some of its original design
features that had made control difficult began to be challenged.
Additionally, surveillance devices and systems were introduced
after 9/11. Four main ways to improve technological surveillance
were proposed since 9/11: biometrics, such as iris scans or
fingerprints; identification cards with embedded programmable
chips; closed circuit television (CCTV), enhanced with facial
recognition software; and communication measures such as wiretaps
and Web-based surveillance (Lyon: 2003). Most of these technologies
were not new. For example, retinal scans had been tested for years
in the context of bank machines, and were deployed at airports for
security after 9/11 (Lyon: 2003). Some of the other measures, such
as increased wiretaps, had to wait for legal change, which was
provided by the Patriot Act, in order to be implemented.
Lauren B. Movius 218
In order to differentiate between types of electronic surveillance,
it is useful to categorize the spectrum of intelligence gathering
activity. While distinctions are not always clear, I will briefly
outline the major categories so that we may better understand the
vast landscape of surveillance technologies. The Director of
National Intelligence lists six main categories of intelligence:
human intelligence (HUMINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery
intelligence (IMINT), measurement and signature intelligence
(MASINT), open source intelligence (OSINT), and geospatial
intelligence (GEOINT).
Human intelligence is the most common form of intelligence
gathering; information is collected by tracking or interviewing a
subject of investigation. The organization primarily responsible
for the collection of human intelligence in the US is the Central
Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. Signals
intelligence is intelligence gathered by intercepting electronic
signals, such as signals sent over radio and broadcast, and forms
of telecommunication, such as emails or encrypted messages. Echelon
is an example of signals intelligence, and the National Security
Agency is the authority corresponding to this category. Because
information may be encrypted, signals intelligence often involves
use of cryptanalysis. Imagery intelligence includes representations
of objects reproduced electronically or optically on film. Open
source intelligence is publicly available information; the Director
of National Intelligence and the National Air and Space
Intelligence Center are the main collectors of open source
intelligence. Geospatial intelligence is the analysis of security
related activities on the earth.
Major Actors
I will now discuss who are the major actors involved in
surveillance and how surveillance processes work. U.S. government
agencies involved in surveillance include the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Also involved is the Homeland
Security Act, which was signed by President Bush on November 25,
2002 and consolidates 22 agencies into one department. One of the
department’s main roles is to access, receive, and analyze
information collected from intelligence agencies, law enforcement,
and the private sector to assess terrorist threats. The Homeland
Security Act included the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, which
expands ISPs’ ability to disclose information to the government,
such as the content of e-mail or instant messages, which can be
given to a government official.
The FBI is one of the major players in surveillance. As of June
2002, the FBI’s official top priority is counterterrorism. In the
fiscal year 2003, the FBI received a total of $4.298 billion,
including $540.281 million in net program increases to enhance
Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, Cyber crime, Information
Technology, Security, Forensics, Training, and Criminal Programs.
The Patriot Act granted the FBI increased powers, especially in
wiretapping and monitoring of Internet activity.
Carnivore is a system implemented by the FBI that is analogous to
wiretapping, except in this case it is e-mail that is being tapped.
The technology uses a standard packet sniffer and filtering. When
an e-mail passes through that matches the filtering criteria
mandated by the
219 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
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warrant, the message is logged along with information on the date,
time, origin and destination of the message and then relayed in
real time to the FBI. It has been reported, as of January 2005,
that the FBI has abandoned the use of Carnivore in favor of
commercially available software (Associated Press: 2005).
The NSA is another U.S. government agency responsible for both the
collection and analysis of communication messages. For years, not
much has been know about the NSA, despite having been described as
the world’s largest single employer of Ph.D. mathematicians, the
owner of the single largest group of supercomputers, and having a
budget much larger than that of the CIA (Bamford: 2001). The NSA
has been heavily involved in cryptanalytic research, continuing the
work of its predecessor agencies, which had been responsible for
breaking many World War II codes and ciphers. The NSA, in
combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, is believed to be responsible
for, among other things, the operation of the Echelon system.
Echelon is thought to be the largest signals intelligence and
analysis network for intercepting electronic communications in
history, with estimations of intercepting up to 3 billion
communications every day. The signals are then processed through a
series of supercomputers that are programmed to search each
communication for targeted addresses, words, phrases, or individual
voices. However, the limits of a large system such as Echelon are
defined by its very size, as discussed below.
The proposed “Total Information Awareness” (TIA) program relied on
technology similar to Echelon, and it would integrate the extensive
sources it is legally permitted to survey domestically, with the
“taps” already compiled by Echelon. TIA is part of the Information
Awareness Office, a mass surveillance development branch of the
United States Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA). The TIA project would develop data mining tools
that would be capable of sorting through huge amounts of
information to find patterns. The system would use information
search and retrieval tools or programs, which automatically
translate recoded messages in order to sift out patterns and
associations from the massive amounts of information, which is
mostly held in private sector databases. The TIA initiative could
combine individuals’ bank records, tax filings, medical data,
e-mail records, and other information into one centralized
database, which could be used for evidence of any suspicious
activity.
The assumption behind these technologies is that terrorists exhibit
patterns of behavior that can be identified by data mining many
pieces of data and activities that are subject to surveillance. By
data mining a range of databases, it is presumed that officials can
identify terrorists before they strike, thus preempting any
terrorist activity. The underlying premise is that if everything
can be seen, then all threats can be stopped. Perhaps more
importantly, there is the conviction that if everything can be
seen, then everything can be controlled; this is a motivation that
drives TIA, but this is not unprecedented, and is a familiar goal
of government.
DARPA did acknowledge concerns of accessing information that is not
normally accessible to government. The Information Awareness Office
amended the Total Information Awareness name in May 2003 to
Terrorist Information Awareness (still TIA) and emphasized in its
report to Congress that the program is not designed to compile
dossiers on U.S. citizens, but rather to
Lauren B. Movius 220
gather information on terrorist networks. Despite this name change,
the description of the program’s activities remained essentially
the same in the report. Congress passed legislation in February of
2003 halting activities of the Information Awareness program, since
it could greatly infringe on individuals’ privacy rights.
While Congress passed a provision shutting down the Pentagon’s TIA,
some of the same ideas appeared in a new program called Multistate
Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (Matrix). The Matrix is
operated by a private company on behalf of a cooperative network of
state governments, and represents an example of a recent “data
surveillance” program. It ties together government and commercial
databases, and according to Congressional testimony and news
reports, it then makes those dossiers available for search by
government officials. For example, in Congressional testimony by
Paula Dockery, she described how the Matrix works as a process that
involves combining government records with information from public
search businesses into a data-warehouse, where these dossiers are
combed by specialized software to identify anomalies using
mathematical analysis (Dockery: 2003). If the details of one’s life
should happen to contain “anomalies”, they will then be scrutinized
by analytical personnel and investigators looking for evidence of
terrorism or other crimes. Company officials have refused to
disclose details of the program, but according to news sources, the
kind of information to be searched includes credit histories,
driver’s license photographs, marriage and divorce records, Social
Security numbers, dates of birth, and the names and addresses of
family members, neighbors and business associates (Stanford &
Ledford: 2003). The Matrix program was terminated in April
2005, although components continued to be made available to police
in individual states, according to the ACLU, which filed Freedom of
Information Act requests concerning Matrix.
Limits of Technology
A main goal of surveillance practices appears to be the development
of superior technologies. The paradox is that the 9/11 terrorists
relied primarily on older technologies, such as jet aircraft and
sharp knives, but the solution to combat terrorism is assumed to be
found in high-technological solutions. Technology is seen as a
savior, and “technological fixes are the common currency of crisis
in late modern societies” (Lyon: 2003: 65). However, there are
limits to technology, which will now be explored.
Can using technology predict terrorist activity? Commenting whether
this is feasible, Steven Aftergood, the head of the Federation of
American Scientists’ projects on government secrecy and
intelligence, doubts that “technology can be precise enough to
distinguish a few suspicious transactions in a sea of activity”
(Harris: 2002). Furthermore, a policy analyst said, “it’s
statistically unlikely that the system could predict and pre-empt
attacks and also avoid targeting innocent people as suspected
terrorists” (Harris: 2002).
Most of the surveillance devices and systems introduced after 9/11
relied on researchable databases. Technologies such as face
recognition, iris scans, and biometrics all rely on searchable
databases, which are used to anticipate and preempt terrorist
activity (Lyon: 2003). Data is sorted by an automated system
according to certain categories in order to isolate an abnormality,
which may be a risk. An algorithm is used to code for indicators of
characteristics or behavior
221 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
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patterns that are related to the occurrence of certain behavior.
Structural elements of the surveillance technologies raise a host
of complex questions; the Electronic Privacy Information Center
(2008) asks the following: “What is the basis for developing the
algorithm? What are acceptable false positive and false negative
rates? What indicators are relevant? Who will collect and store the
relevant indicators? How are the indicators related to particular
kinds of behavior? Is that relationship reliable? Who determines
what behavior should be targeted? What types of specific behavior
will the system try to catch?”
Additionally, there are technical issues, such as the reliability
of the data used to make decisions, and questions of who will have
access to the data and for what purposes. Finally, there are policy
issues that need to be addressed, including a determination of
individuals’ rights to control their personally identifiable
information, and recourses available for someone wrongly identified
or denied a service.
A key aspect of contemporary surveillance is “social sorting”. Lyon
(2003) argues that this type of automated discriminatory mechanism
for social categorizing reproduces social and economic divisions in
societies. Information is stored in large databases, and data
mining is used as a tool to discover patterns in the data. Data
mining facilitates the classification of individuals into segments
or groups. However, the means by which these groups are created is
problematic. While the technologies employed are very high-tech,
the categories with which they are coded are much more simple. Lyon
(2003) notes how database marketers in the US use crude behavioral
categories to describe neighborhoods, such as “pools and patios” or
“bohemian mix”, and CCTV operators in the UK target the “young,
black, male” group. The social implications of data mining are
discrimination and exclusion. Gandy (2003) cites a commentator who
referred to data mining as “Weblining”, in order to draw a parallel
between “redlining”, which uses spatial or geo- demographic
discrimination, to data mining, which uses conceptual categories
instead of spatial in order to potentially discriminate against
groups.
Social sorting raises a critical question about how we understand
and theorize surveillance developments: does surveillance entail
intrusion or exclusion? (Lyon: 2003). This paper has discussed how
increased surveillance post 9/11 has led to the infringement of
individual’s privacy; therefore, surveillance in these terms is
viewed in individualist terms as an intrusion on privacy. This
individualistic view of intrusion contrasts with how “social
sorting” excludes people by categorizing them into cultural or
social divisions. Thus, we can question whether intrusion or
exclusion is a better conceptualizing or motif of surveillance post
9/11. Arab and Muslim minorities have been disproportionately
targeted by surveillance measures in several countries (Lyon:
2003), suggestion that categorical exclusion is just as important
to consider as intrusion of individual privacy.
Analysis of Intelligence
The actual ability to survey leads to information, but the key
problem is that sufficient resources do not exist to properly
analyze this information. The ultimate goal of intelligence is
accurate analysis. The Congressional Research Service report states
that “analysis is not an exact science and there have been, and
undoubtedly will continue to be, failures by analysts to prepare
accurate and timely assessments and estimates” (Best: 2006). The
overall quality of
Lauren B. Movius 222
analysis has not been high, looking to the failure to provide
advance warning of the 9/11 attacks and a flawed estimate of Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction as evidence of systemic problems (Best:
2006).
Returning to Echelon, the limits of a large system such as Echelon
are defined by its very size. Though the system intercepts 3
billion communications daily, analysts must know which intercepted
communications to monitor before they can realize an intelligence
advantage. For example, in the months prior to the 9/11 attacks,
there were snippets of dialogue found that suggested some sort of
attack was imminent. However, analysts were unable to pin down the
details of the attack because operatives planning the attack relied
largely on non-electronic communications (Bamford: 2001).
The strategic analysis of information, not just the accumulation of
information, is the key to success of increased surveillance. Some
efforts have been made to resolve this problem of analytical
shortcomings since 9/11. For example, Congress has increased
funding for analytical offices, and the Intelligence Reform Act of
2004 contains a number of provisions designed to improve analysis,
including the designation of an entity to ensure that intelligence
products are timely, objective, and independent of political
considerations, and the designation of an official to whom analysts
can turn for problems of analytical politicization or lack of
objectivity. However, there remain several impediments to a
much-needed comprehensive analysis. First, there are long
lead-times to prepare and train analysts, especially in fields of
counterterrorism and counter proliferation (Best: 2006). Secondly,
there has been a shortage of trained linguists, especially in
languages of current interest. While the National Security
Education Program is designed to meet this need, most observers
believe the need for linguists will remain a pressing concern for
some years (Best: 2006).
A report by the Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario (IPC),
which reviewed national security measures introduced since the 9/11
attacks, found that security experts do not think a huge electronic
infrastructure is needed to solve national security problems
(Cavoukian: 2003). In fact, a lack of information was not what
prevented the FBI from discovering the terrorists’ plans for 9/11.
On the contrary, it was “an excess of badly organized and poorly
shared data” (Cavoukian: 2003: 26). A 2001 Congressional report on
NSA states the agency is ‘faced with profound
“needle-in-the-haystack” challenges’ because of the volume of
information collected (Bamford: 2002). This finding was echoed by a
congressional investigation into the 2001 terrorist attacks, which
found that the failure by government to prevent the attacks was not
caused by a lack of surveillance technology; instead, it was the
result of fundamental organizational breakdowns in the intelligence
community.
Instead of assisting in the war on terror, more realistically,
perhaps, surveillance results in a chilling effect. The Information
and Privacy Commissioner states that programs of surveillance may
‘impact the behavior of both terrorists and law-abiding individuals
alike. Terrorists are likely to go to great lengths to make certain
that their behavior is statistically “normal,” while ordinary
people are likely to avoid unusual but lawful behavior out of fear
of being labeled “un-American.”’ (Cavoukian: 2003: 16).
223 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
to Democratic Communication
Conclusion
This article has focused on the U.S., but a major shift has taken
place in the political and legal landscape of many counties around
the world that introduced legislation to aid their ability to fight
terrorism following 9/11. For example, France passed 13
anti-terrorism measures on October 31, 2001, the United Kingdom
passed the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act on December 15,
2001, Canada passed the Anti-Terrorism Act on December 18, 2001,
and Australia introduced five anti-terrorism bills in 2002.
Moreover, many countries have adapted their political discourse and
broadened definitions of “terrorism” and “terrorists,” in order to
pass laws which had previously failed - illustrating the pattern of
using social alarm of terrorism to enact legislation that would
otherwise likely encounter resistance.
National security is often used as the rationale to enact
legislation and heighten surveillance powers, and the debate is
centered on security versus privacy. Indeed, following 9/11, the
debate between security and privacy gained new momentum (Neocleous:
2007). However, the dichotomy between security and privacy is a
false one (Cavoukian: 2008). Security and privacy is not a zero sum
game; giving up privacy does not necessarily lead to greater
security, and increased security need not result in a loss of
privacy.
There are two logics operating in the context of the Internet.
First, there is the logic of security vis-à-vis the Internet that
creates conditions for surveillance. Second, there is the logic of
control. I suggest that the real debate is about liberty versus
control, and the U.S. government has operated under the logic of
control. Liberty means having both privacy and security. As
Benjamin Franklin famously observed, people willing to trade their
freedom and liberty for temporary security deserve neither and will
lose both. Surely there is a better way to balance our civil
liberties and the nation’s security without abandoning either.
Indeed, in response to the erosion of civil liberties, social
movements have formed to advocate for increased privacy protection
and more checks and balances on government surveillance. Further
research may investigate this crucial area of the impact of social
movements on Internet policy and privacy protection.
Surveillance initiatives analyzed in this article are only symptoms
of deeper shifts in political culture, governance, and social
control (Lyon: 2003). Diffie and Landau (2007: 313) remark,
“Control of society is, in large part, control of communication.”
As society and technology evolve, the government’s power to control
communication changes. If increased surveillance continues, it does
not bode well for democracy and personal liberties. The struggle
over control of communication and individual’s rights will surely
continue for years to come. Research on these battles for power and
control will help us understand the role of technology in society,
as well as how to better balance the needs of both the government
and the public.
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227 Surveillance, Control, and Privacy on the Internet : Challenges
to Democratic Communication
German Espino
Professor, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences Autonomous
University of Queretaro, Mexico.C.P. 76000.
E-mail: herman@uaq.mx
Abstract
With the downfall of the authoritarian regime ruling Mexico for
more than seven decades, the relationship between politicians, the
mass media and public opinion transformed dramatically. This paper
addresses such a transformation of political communication by
looking at the 1994, 2000 and 2006 presidential campaigns in
comparative perspective. The analysis observes specific changes in
the area, such as the displacement of the traditional centers of
power that determined the political relations during the
authoritarian regime as well as the breakdown of the corporatist
compliances that characterized the media-government relations.
Further traits that illustrate contemporary changes in political
communication in Mexico is the establishment plural spectrum of
powerful media whose barons act as powerful pressure groups; and
the instability of Mexican electorate, which in turn fuels the
prevalence of both independent and ‘soft vote’ over the ‘hard
vote’. Finally, the paper concludes that candidate’s media and
communication strategies during the 2006 presidential campaigns
were the most influential factors of the election.
Key words: Elections/campaigns, agenda setting, media effects,
Quantitative/survey, Quantitative/content analysis.
Introduction
This paper presents the results of a study aiming to analyze the
2006 presidential election in Mexico. The central hypothesis
sustains that the overthrow of the authoritarian regime which ruled
the country for over seventy years, has sparked an ongoing
transformation of the roles being played by three key political
communication actors –politicians, mass media and the public
opinion. Wolton (1998) defines political communication as a space
where there is an exchange of contradictory speeches from among
politicians, mass media, and public opinion, as three actors that
have the legitimate right to express their views. In order to
explain the new process of political communication, this article
describes the new roles of these three players.
A new political communication scenario has been established in the
Mexican presidential elections with the mentioned change in regimen
and the principal transformations lie in: 1) the non-existence of
an authoritarian regime that ordered the rotation of power in
Mexico due to a new plurality of actors and game rules, taking the
president out of a central power position and putting into place a
variety of different sectors that formed groups embattled in the
process of
Journal of Global Communication, Vol2., No.1, Jan.-July 2009 pp.
225-247
Basic concepts to situate the political communication in
Mexico
Some authors have argued for the medias’ attested ability to
influence voters, giving us such theories as the Spiral of Silence
and Agenda Setting. The latter is a key concept in this study as
one of the theories that have taken up the concept of the powerful
role of the media in modern life. It helps us understand how
political actors such as the media and the different sectors of
civil society participate in influencing political campaigns.
According to this theory, the media are not consigned to telling
people what to think but they can guide them in a space where the
media has the capacity to direct public attention towards
particular issues. The fact that the media can chose these issues
corresponds to a fixation on agenda setting, suggesting that we all
have the need to know what is happening around us and that it is
the medias job to satisfy this need. As such, the media no longer
persuade, instead they choose issues and guide the public towards
them.
There are two recent contemporary political communication
tendencies that are crucial to a critical approach towards
political campaigns: 1) the media as newly arrived public space
protagonists, a trend commonly denominated as “video-politics”; and
2) the Americanization of the political campaigns. The first one is
called video-politics because of the hegemonic nature of television
and the tendency of journalists and communicators to place
themselves as the protagonists of public space which results in
displacing politicians’ influence towards that of media
personalities. The second phenomenon of the Americanization of
political campaigns refers to the way politicians, the media and
diverse political systems adopt political electoral technology
designed in the United States. These trends are often intermingled
and this analysis sometimes makes a distinction between the two
tendencies while staying close to showing how they work together in
the new scenario of political communication.
Furthermore, the analytical lenses of Americanization and
Video-politics help us approach other political processes such as
voter volatility that gets translated into polls results in which
independent voters constitute a decisive majority. They also help
us to look at political party configurations such as the “catch-all
parties” and how these displace the candidates’ parties. As a
result, these lenses identify how the political campaigns have
become more personalized, where a candidate gets turned into a
media personality. In the same manner, they help us to see the
processes taking place in the current landscape of political
communication as key campaign strategies are centered on the
political marketing, and where the three main political parties
institute primaries to select their candidates.
229 The Transformation of Political Communication in Mexico
(1994-2006)
However relevant, Americanization and video-politics theories fall
short in terms of being able to describe the totality of these
processes. ‘Reception studies’ are one of the more comprehensive
means through which to tackle the macro-processes of the new
configuration of political communication that is taking place in
Mexico (Morley 1996, 37; Orozco 2004, Jensen 1995). This
theoretical corpus offers the following Mexican political
communication assumptions:
I. Within the plural spectrum of media outlets in a democracy, the
bulk of the media develop an “internal plurality” that consists of
a diversity of ideological voices and affiliations. There also are
media networks that represent the principal existing ideologies
that pertain to the “external plurality” of the public space. These
two aspects of the spectrum compensate each other in a process that
tends to reduce the potential bias inherent in the media.
II. News media is a product of different voices and cultural
traditions that often results in the polysemic character of their
messages.
III. The theory highlights the importance of active receptors who
are constantly reinterpreting messages. The meaning the audience
gives to the messages is not inextricably linked to the source or
to the means of communication. Reception is a complex process of
influences that interact with the agents and with the circumstances
of the communicative process. Within this complexity, it is the
receptors who establish the final meaning given to any
message.
IV. This process can be thought of in terms of a complex contextual
resignification of media events. It is not the only factor that
determines the meaning process since meaning is a result of a
permanent battle between different agents and circumstances of the
communicative process. There are a number of factors that come into
play such as the diversity of media outlets, group influences,
political ideologies, etc.
V. The process of message resignification is like a power struggle.
Texts are not a blank page which succumb to the whims of the
receptor. Instead, the cultural studies tradition insists that
there are sense enclosures inscribed in texts despite their
polysemic character. Given the range of possible meanings, a
receptor’s reading could be: dominated (reproducing the outlets
intended meaning); negotiated (partially reinterpreting the
intended meaning); or critical (deconstructing the inscribed power
mechanisms in the text which allows the receptor to develop a
personal interpretation of the text).
German Espino 230
Methodology
Electoral-campaigns literature typically focuses on research
methods which aid to evaluate the main variables affecting
electoral processes, their impact or degree of variance. However,
this paper aim is not to assess such variables separately, but
rather, goes beyond to further examine the configuration of a new
political communication landscape by focusing on the interplay and
roles of the three key actors, as the following diagram shows
(Graph I).
Graphic I: Relationships between the political communications
agents
Consequently, media campaigns are the chosen strategy that allows
candidates to intervene in media outlets. The principal elemen