Skip to main content

The word “surveillance” often conjures up George Orwell’s dystopian world in 1984, where a totalitarian government had obliterated intellectual and political freedoms and kept an ever-watchful eye on its citizens. Today, mass surveillance certainly exists in the United States, everything from local traffic cameras to federal agencies monitoring our electronic communications. Edward Snowden revealed just how much the U.S. government knows about us. Yet, there are other kinds of surveillance that we often fail to recognize. These include corporate surveillance and the surveillance we do to ourselves. We use social media to keep track of our friends and family, let Alexa do our shopping, and rely on smart devices to monitor nearly every aspect of our daily lives. In turn, we readily hand over valuable information to Big Tech and advertisers every time we go online. Orwell could never have conceived of such a future. Students in this course will learn about the Culture of Surveillance through readings, videos, and discussions, and they will be invited to question why they should care about surveillance themselves. Students will develop a research project that explores the wide-ranging effects of surveillance on people’s daily lives, come to recognize the impact of various surveillance practices on our society, and become familiar with tools that can help them better secure their personal data and protect their individual privacy. This course fulfills the FYS and SS general education requirements.

Instructor
Ryan Deuel
Semester:
Spring 2022
Course Code:
FRPG 2191
Subject:
FYP-FYS