Assessing Externalities: Surveillance and Resistance

This deliverable focusses on the thematic area of surveillance and resistance to surveillance, through digital platforms, in Europe. It consists of three main sections. The first section has two parts. Part-one presents a theoretical reflection on surveillance and resistance to surveillance, addressing the interdisciplinary field of surveillance studies. This theoretical reflection elaborates on the multitude of approaches to and definitions of surveillance/resistance, presents the main actors, practices and technologies of surveillance/resistance, and further explores political, cultural and social aspects and dimensions of surveillance/resistance, as they are addressed in the international academic literature. Par-two of the first section includes a brief presentation of practices of digital surveillance/resistance in Europe, in specific areas, pertinent to the EUMEPLAT project, namely, economy, migration, gender, health and the environment.

The second section of this deliverable reflects on the research conducted within the EUMEPLAT project and its relevance for surveillance/resistance. This reflective and reflexive part scrutinises the research, data and analyses produced as part of the first four EUMEPLAT work package deliverables (WP1-WP4), and identifies a series of issues, dimensions and debates, pertaining to surveillance/resistance, facilitated through communication and media platforms in Europe.

The third section, which has a future-oriented focus, involves future scenario development and analysis, concerning surveillance/resistance, enabled through communication and media platforms in Europe. Even if the scenarios are fictional and for this reason a number of these scenarios were not considered by their creators as likely to materialise, still, they are highly relevant as they encapsulate visions –that is, hopes and fears– about societies and about Europe. Hence, this section presents the findings of the scenario analysis, by focussing on the scenario creators' visions about the future, without engaging in evaluative judgements about how these creators imagine the future, but by exploring the underlying attitudes, assumptions and ideologies that inform these visions.

The three sections of this deliverable –theoretical elaboration, reflection on EUMEPLAT research, and future scenario development and analysis – allow to: a. deliver a condensed state of the art in surveillance studies, from a communication and media studies perspective, b. address a theoretically informed reflection concerning surveillance/resistance, through digital platforms, in Europe, as it appears in contemporary research (see EUMEPLAT WP 1-4), and c. sketch out future outlooks, in the specific area of study, examining how these visions of the future reflect main assumptions, fears and hopes about Europe.