The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure

Critical Studies in Media Communication Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2002, pp. 230–248

Mark Andrejevic

ᮀ—Recognizing that privacy rights are complicit in the very forms of economic monitoring and data gathering they ostensibly oppose, this essay offers a critique of corporate surveillance as a technique for exploiting the work of being watched. Consumers who submit to comprehensive surveillance in response to offers of convenience and participation perform valuable work for corporations and marketers. The model of consumer labor developed in the essay is applied to the online economy and the example of interactive TV. The analysis suggests that a critical approach to forms of surveillance facilitated by interactive media must focus on asymmetries of power and control over information technologies and resources.

URING the halcyon days of the e-commerce—an entrepreneurial Tru- Dhigh-tech economy—at the dawn man Burbank—DotComGuy hoped to of the new millennium—an entrepre- turn his Website into a for-profit corpo- neurial-minded former employee of the ration that would generate enough AirTouch corporation decided to money to support his handlers and change his name to DotComGuy and earn him a $98,000 paycheck for his live his life on-line. For the former year-long stint in the DotCompound. Mitch Maddox (a.k.a. DotComGuy) The plan started swimmingly—Dot- the decision was more than just a life- ComGuy’s stunt resulted in media cov- style decision; it was a business deci- erage that drew sponsors and captured sion. By living his life in front of 25 the attention of viewers, who gener- cameras installed in his house and yard, ated more than a million hits a day for DotComGuy hoped to demonstrate the his Website during its first few months benefits of e-commerce, ordering ev- (personal interview with Mitch Mad- erything he needed on-line so that he dox, Sept. 16, 2000). By the end of the wouldn’t have to leave his home for a year, the euphoria over the on-line year. As an on-line advertisement for economy had been replaced by a healthy dose of skepticism, and as the NASDAQ headed south, so did Dot- Mark Andrejevic is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Fairfield Uni- ComGuy’s fortunes. On New Year’s versity. He would like to acknowledge the invalu- Day 2001, DotComGuy left the com- able assistance of Bonnie J. Dow and of the pound behind and forfeited his $98,000 essay’s anonymous reviewers in developing the payday, keeping as payment only those manuscript’s arguments and preparing it for products that the company had pur- publication. chased or received for promotional pur-

CSMC ANDREJEVIC poses (Copeland, 2001). DotComGuy’s wherein networks are winning ratings venture may have failed as a business battles by enlisting people to submit enterprise, but it succeeded in drawing their lives to comprehensive scrutiny, attention to an important aspect of the the claim that being watched is a form emerging online economy: the produc- of value-generating labor ought not to tivity of comprehensive surveillance. be a particularly surprising one. We DotComGuy understood that while are not just facing a world in which a he was in the DotCompound, he was few select members of the audience are working 24-hours-a-day. Even when he entering the celebrity ranks and cash- was sleeping, the image of Maddox ing in on their 15 minutes of fame, but tucked into bed in his Dallas home was one in which non-celebrities—the re- surrounded with banner ads and the maining viewers—are being recruited names of sponsors, some of which were to participate in the labor of being posted on the walls of his house. It was watched to an unprecedented degree for the work he was performing by by subjecting the details of their daily subjecting himself to online surveil- lives to increasingly pervasive and com- lance that DotComGuy was to receive prehensive forms of high-tech monitor- his $98,000 payday. That he failed to ing. Their viewing habits, their shop- turn a profit doesn’t alter the economic ping habits, even their whereabouts fact upon which his entrepreneurial are subject not just to monitoring but venture was based: that the emerging to inclusion in detailed marketing data- online economy increasingly seeks to bases, thanks to the advent of com- exploit the work of being watched. puter-based forms of interactive me- DotComGuy may have failed to capi- dia. This observation has become a talize on this labor as an entrepreneur, commonplace in the popular literature but major corporations continue to at- on new media and has generated plenty tempt to exploit the economic poten- of discussion on the fate of personal tial of this labor on a much larger scale. privacy in the on-line economy (see, Some 15 years ago, Jhally and Li- for example, Garfinkel, 2000; Rosen, vant (1986), inspired by the work of 2000; Whitaker, 1999). The consensus Dallas Smythe (1977; 1981), argued seems to be that the development of that communication theory needed to interactive media and of computer pro- take seriously the notion that audi- cessing and storage power enable the ences were working when they were increasing economic exploitation of watching television. This paper seeks comprehensive forms of consumer to develop their argument a bit fur- monitoring. In response, organizations ther—to update it, as it were, for an era like the Electronic Privacy Informa- of new-media interactivity—by high- tion Center (EPIC) have organized to lighting the emerging significance of advocate for consumer privacy rights the work not just of watching, but of and protection from creeping corpo- being watched. The two complement rate surveillance. each other, insofar as the development The drawback of much of the discus- of interactive media allows for the ratio- sion about privacy, as authors includ- nalization of viewing and consumption ing Lyon (1994) and Gandy (1993) have in general, thanks to devices like inter- suggested, is that the attempt to defend active television that watch us while we privacy rights has a disconcerting ten- watch. In the era of “reality” TV, dency to work as much in the interest 232

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 of the corporations doing the monitor- Foucault’s (1975/1977) discussion of ing as in that of the individuals being disciplinary surveillance offers an ap- monitored. The development of demo- proach to the question of power that graphic databases relies heavily on the seems particularly relevant to the devel- protection accorded to private prop- opment of the online economy since it erty, since these databases are profit- focuses not so much on the repressive able in large part because the informa- force of panopticism, but its production they contain is proprietary. As tive deployment. The potential of the Lyon (1994) puts it, “Privacy grows online economy that has recently at- from the same modern soil as surveil- tracted so much speculation—both fi- lance, which is another reason for nancial and cultural—is predicated in doubting its efficacy as a tool of counter- large part on the anticipated productiv- surveillance” (p. 21). ity of generalized network surveil- As an alternative to the popular por- lance. The power in question is not the trayal of the proliferation of corporate static domination of a sovereign Big surveillance in terms of the incredible Brother, but that of a self-stimulating shrinking private sphere, this essay sug- incitement to productivity: the multipli- gests an approach influenced by the cation of desiring subjects and subjects’ concerns of political economy and the desires in accordance with the rational- analysis of disciplinary panopticism. ization of consumption. In this context, Conceived as a form of labor, the work the production of ever more refined of being watched can be critiqued in and detailed categories of desiring sub- terms of power and differential access jectivities serves, as Butler’s (1997) anal- to both the means of surveillance and ysis suggests, as a site for the reiteration the benefits derived from their deploy- of existing conditions and relations of ment. The operative question is not power. whether a particular conception of pri- The starting point for an analysis of vacy has been violated but, rather: what surveillance as exploitation is the asser- are the relations that underwrite entry tion that just as workplace monitoring contributes to the rationalization of pro- into a relationship of surveillance, and duction, so on-line surveillance contrib- who profits from the work of being utes to the rationalization of consump- watched? Such an analysis draws its tion. The attempt to extend the inspiration from Robins and Webster’s monitoring reach of corporate manag- (1999) assessment of the Information ers via the internet serves to compel Revolution as “a matter of differential personal disclosure by replacing non- (and unequal) access to, and control monitored forms of consumption with over, information resources” (p. 91). monitored interactive transactions. The Gandy (1993), quoting Klaus Lenk, cuts following sections attempt to trace the to the heart of the matter: outlines of the process whereby the The real issue at stake is not personal work of being watched comes to serve privacy, which is an ill-defined concept, as a means of rationalizing not just greatly varying according to the cultural what Jhally and Livant (1986) call the context. It is power gains of bureaucracies, work of watching, but the process of both private and public, at the expense of on-line consumption in general. The individuals and the non-organized sectors goal is to offer an alternative approach of society. (p. 52) to the debate over on-line privacy in 233

CSMC ANDREJEVIC the era of new-media interactivity. Not ample, Braverman’s (1974) discussion only is the privacy defense aligned with of the pioneering work of Frederick the process it ostensibly contests, but, Taylor in developing a system of work- practically speaking, it has failed to place rationalization in the late 19th provide effective resistance to en- and early 20th centuries highlights the croaching surveillance. Indeed, oppo- reliance of what Taylor called “scien- nents of corporate surveillance seem tiﬁc management” upon comprehen- unable to provide a compelling ratio- sive forms of workplace monitoring. nale for privacy protection in an era Taylor’s description of how he suc- when consumers remain surprisingly ceeded in dramatically increasing the willing to surrender increasingly com- productivity of steel workers starts off prehensive forms of personal informa- with a description of the role of surveil- tion in response to offers of conve- lance in deciding which workers would nience and customization. be targeted. Managers observed the Perhaps some awareness of the way entire workforce for four days before in which the new “transparency” exac- choosing several workers upon whom erbates informational asymmetries and to focus their efforts: “A careful study power imbalances, serving as a form of was then made of each of these men. marketplace discipline, might provide We looked up their history as far back stronger grounds for a critique of the as practicable and thorough inquiries proliferation of corporate surveillance. were made as to the character, habits, Such a critique might also help chal- and the ambition of each of them” lenge the promotion of interactive tech- (Taylor, as quoted in Braverman, 1974, nologies (and the forms of consump- p. 104). The selected worker’s training tion and production they facilitate) as consisted in his being supervised by a inherently democratic and empower- manager who observed his every ac- ing. This essay seeks to provide one tion, timing him with a stopwatch, and starting point for such a challenge by dictating the laborer’s actions down to exploring how the promise of interac- the most speciﬁc detail. The result of tivity functions as an invitation to engage in the work of being watched. all this monitoring and managing was The remaining sections of the essay that the productivity of the day la- trace the development of the produc- borer, whom Taylor refers to in his tive role of surveillance from its deploy- case study as “Schmidt,” almost qua- ment in the workplace to its extension drupled. The activity of being watched into the realm of online consumption, wasn’t productive on its own, but drawing on the example of interactive coupled with another form of labor, it TV, especially TiVo, to illustrate the helped multiply the latter’s productiv- importance of interactive media to the ity. Over time, the recognition of the rationalization of e-commerce. productivity of surveillance helped to institutionalize the rationalization of production based on ever more de- Productive Surveillance tailed forms of workplace monitoring, including Gilbreth’s famous time and The productivity of surveillance, for motion studies. the purposes of this article, can be Among those who write about sur- understood as being always parasitic veillance, Foucault (1975/1977; 1976/ upon another form of labor. For ex- 1978) has powerfully thematized its 234

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 productive aspect, which all too often what attracts the interest and the capi- gets short shrift in the critical literature tal of the online economy. on surveillance. For example, Gid- In contemporary terms, productive dens’s (1981) discussion of the police disciplinary power stimulates the pro- power of the surveillance state, as well liferation of desiring subjectivities as the various discussions of disciplin- through the multiplication of consump- ary surveillance offered by Norris and tion categories: the endless sub-catego- Armstrong (1999), Lyon (1994), and rization and specification of individual- Gandy (1993), retain strong overtones ized sets of tastes and preferences. of what Foucault describes as the insis- Recording and measuring, specifying tence in the West on “seeing the power and naming, these are the current it exercises as juridical and negative watchwords of the marketing industry, rather than technical and positive” which doesn’t “set boundaries” for con- (1980, p. 121). This tendency is also sumption, but extends its various forms, reflected in the public debate over on- “pursuing them to lines of indefinite line privacy, which centers on the “in- penetration” (Foucault 1976/1978, p. vasion” of privacy and the oppressive 47). For example, the proponents of surveillance capacity of the state. The mass customization (Negroponte, 1995; emphasis is upon the ways in which Pine, 1993; Gates 1996) imagine the disciplinary surveillance creates “doc- possibilities of specifying desire ever ile bodies” and not upon the more more narrowly based not just on con- suggestive aspect of Foucault’s analy- sumers’ past preferences and socio- sis: the spiraling cycle of productivity economic backgrounds, but on the de- incited by disciplinary regimes: the fact tails of the moment: location, the time that docile bodies are not rendered of day, the weather. As in the case of inert, but stimulated. As Foucault puts sexuality, the elaboration and prolif- it in Discipline and Punish (1975/1977): eration of desire is achieved through “Let us say that discipline is the unitary subjection to a discursive regime of technique by which the body is re- self-disclosure whose contemporary duced as a ‘political’ force at the least cultural manifestations include not just cost and maximized as a useful force” the mania for interactivity, but the con- (p. 221). Docility and pacification are fessional culture of a talk show nation, certainly among the goals of discipline, and, most recently, the ethos of willing but the real power of surveillance is a submission to comprehensive surveil- relentlessly productive and stimulating lance associated with the booming real- one: ity TV trend. The power of Foucault’s approach is The Panopticon...hasarole of amplifica- that it extends its consideration of the tion; although it arranges power, although productive role of panoptic surveil- it is intended to make it more economic lance beyond the realm of the work- and effective, it does so not for power place. The accumulation of bodies— itself...itsaimistostrengthen the social forces—to increase production, to develop their organization and deployment not the economy...toincrease and multiply. just within the factory walls, but in the (1977, p. 208) “privacy” of homes and bedrooms—is a necessary corollary to the accumula- This power—and not the sterile juridi- tion of capital (and vice versa). As Fou- cal “repressive” gaze of Big Brother—is cault puts it, capitalism “would not be 235

CSMC ANDREJEVIC possible without the controlled inser- styles. Gathering this information was tion of bodies into the machinery of the work of market researchers and production and the adjustment of the advertisers—work that is becoming in- phenomena of population to economic creasingly important in the era of niche processes” (1975/1977, p. 141). Disci- markets and customized products and plinary surveillance does not just under- services. Interactive technologies, as the write subjection to the proliferation of business world has come to recognize desire, it also—and not incidentally— (Mougayar, 1998), allow for much of enhances economic productivity. this work to be ofﬂoaded onto consum- Foucault’s account of the productive ers, who increasingly provide detailed role of desire thus provides a useful information about themselves as they rejoinder to those who engage in what consume. The economic value of this Schiller (1988) describes as a “Si- information means not just that it can syphean attempt to distinguish produc- be bought and sold, but that consum- tive from unproductive labor in terms ers are often compensated for their of a hypostasized set of productive ac- participation in producing it. tivities” (p. 36). The information economy—including that designed to stimulate consumption via the accumu- Rationalizing the Work lation, manipulation, and deployment of Watching of information derived from consumer Jhally and Livant (1986) describe surveillance—is economically produc- another form of labor for which con- tive, and the labor associated with it sumers are “paid”: the work of watch- can be identiﬁed by its status as a value- ing. Building on their approach, this generating activity. The stimulation and section takes the argument a step fur- rationalization of consumer desire is a ther by exploring the way in which the practical corollary to the rationaliza- work of being watched contributes to the tion of production proper. As Harvey rationalization of the work of watch- (1999), following Marx, puts it, “pro- ing. Jhally and Livant’s analysis is duction and consumption relate to each straightforward: audiences perform other so that ‘each of them creates the work by viewing advertising in ex- other in completing itself, and creates change for “payment” in the form of itself as the other’” (p. 80). For ex- programming content. The viewing of ample, as historians, marketers, and advertising is productive because it social critics alike have recognized helps “speed up the selling of commodi- (Marchand, 1985; Sloan, 1963; Robins ties, their circulation from production & Webster, 1999), the development of to consumption....Through advertis- consumer society required techniques ing, the rapid consumption of com- for stimulating consumption to keep modities cuts down on circulation and pace with the increasing volume and storage costs for industrial capital” (p. variety of products made available by 125). In these terms, watching advertis- the technological and managerial ad- ing might be understood as an activity vances associated with the industrial in which, as Harvey (1999) puts it, the revolution. These techniques went far process of consumption completes it- beyond management of the workplace self in the process of production. proper, and relied upon detailed moni- For the purposes of a consideration toring of consumer habits and life- of the labor of being watched, the cru- 236

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 cial point made by Jhally and Livant the hurdles that those who would ratio- (1986) is that the goal of media manage- nalize the work of being watched need ment is to rationalize the work of watch- to overcome. The fact that we accept ing—to “make the audience watch surveillance more readily in the work- harder” (p. 133), just as Taylor made place is a function of the characteristic Schmidt quadruple his daily productiv- spatio-temporal differentiation associ- ity. One strategy for rationalization is ated with wage labor in modernity, niche marketing, which Jhally and Li- according to Giddens (1981): “Two op- vant describe as “the specification and posed modes of time-consciousness, fractionation of the audience” that leads ‘working time’ and ‘one’sown’ or ‘free to “a form of ‘concentrated viewing’ in time’, become basic divisions within which there is (from the point of view the phenomenal experience of the day” of advertisers) little wasted watching” (p. 137). Surveillance, within this (p. 133). As in the case of Schmidt, schema, is associated with time that is what is needed is detailed information not free, but which is subject to the about the audience labor force: both its asymmetrical power relations of the background and its behavior. The com- workplace, underwritten by the work- modification of this information has ers’ subordination to those who con- already been institutionalized as the trol the space of production. secondary market in ratings, whose The productive potential of the la- growth accompanied that of the elec- bor of being watched is further limited tronic mass media. The labor of being by the structure of the mass media, watched goes hand-in-hand with the which are only capable of exploiting work of watching: viewers are moni- the logic of market fractionation up to tored so advertisers can be ensured a point. It is desirable to isolate an that this work is being done as efficiently as possible. Ratings, in this con- affluent demographic, but to continue text, are informational commodities to subdivide the audience beyond a that generate value because they help certain point would be counter-produc- to rationalize the viewing process. They tive, not least because the existing tech- become what Mosco (1996), following nology is not well-suited to individual- Meehan, describes as “cybernetic” ized programming. At the same time, commodities: “feedback” commodi- detailed monitoring has tended to be ties produced through consumption or relatively costly and has relied to a interaction (p. 151). large extent on the consent of the moni- Within the context of the mass me- tored. Thus, the television industry has, dia, the labor of being watched faced until recently, contented itself with the certain limitations, both structural and relatively small sample offered by the cultural. Watching advertising may be Nielsen ratings, rather than attempting a form of work, according to Jhally and more detailed and comprehensive ap- Livant, but it does not take place within proaches to managing the work of a centralized space that would allow watching. However, the advent of inter- broadcasters to stand over viewers with active, networked forms of content de- a stopwatch, as in the case of the scien- livery promises to overcome these tific management of the factory labor limitations and to develop the poten- force. Indeed, a certain expectation of tial of the work of being watched to its privacy outside the workplace is one of fullest. 237

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Interactive Surveillance in preferences, allowing individuals to the Digital Enclosure choose the type of ending they want, the setting of the movie, and even the The emerging model of the on-line stars (who can be “customized” thanks economy is explicitly based on the strat- to digitization). Similarly, customized egy for rationalizing and disciplining advertising would ensure that every ad the labor of viewing—and of consump- is tailored to the demographics of its tion in general—so as to make it more recipient. A similar logic could be ex- productive. The goal is to replace mass tended to products other than media marketing and production with custom- programming. For example, computer- ized programming, products, and mar- ization, according to Gates (1996), will keting. In the business literature (Mou- allow “Increasing numbers of prod- gayar, 1998; Pine, 1993), this paradigm ucts—from shoes to chairs, from news- is described as “mass customization”: papers and magazines to music al- the ability to produce mass quantities bums” to be “created on the spot to of products that are, at the same time, match the exact specifications of a par- custom-tailored to niche markets and, ticular person” (p. 188). Half a decade at the extreme, to specific individuals. after Gates made these predictions, Described as the advent of flexible Wired magazine, in its April, 2001 production in response to increasingly “Megatrends” issue declared “personal volatile market conditions, mass cus- fabrication on demand” to be one of tomization represents the enhanced the top emerging trends of the new capacity of interactive technology to exploit the productive potential of mar- millennium (p. 172). ket segmentation. Viewed as a strategy The attempt to develop increasingly for promoting consumption, niche customized programming and prod- marketing is not a demand-driven phe- ucts foregrounds the economic importance of what might be described as nomenon, instigated by the sudden, st inexplicable volatility of consumer pref- the 21 century digital confessional: an erences, but rather, as Harvey (1990) incitement to self-disclosure as a form suggests, a supply-side response to the of self-expression and individuation. saturation of the mass market. Interactive (cybernetic) media pro- In the media market, as well as in mote this self-disclosure insofar as they other segments of the economy, the offer the potential to integrate the la- promise of interactive communication bor of watching with that of being technologies is to surpass the structural watched. The cybernetic economy thus limitations that prevented the exploita- anticipates the productivity of a digital tion of increasingly compact market form of disciplinary panopticism, predi- niches. If the advent of cable television cated not just on the monitoring gaze, allowed for market segmentation up to but on the vast array of digital data a point, the development of digital de- made available by interactive and con- livery allows for its extension down to vergent communication technologies. the level of the individual viewer. Bill The accumulation of detailed demo- Gates (1996), for example, anticipates graphic information allows not only a world in which not just the timing for the customization of products and and choice of programs will be custom- programming, but also for customized ized, but in which the content and the pricing. Whereas mass production was advertising can be adapted to viewer reliant on the aggregation of individual 238

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 demand curves, customization allows tual spaces where they can double as a for the dis-aggregation of demand form of commodity-generating labor. curves, and thus for the possibility that If the latest work of a popular author or producers can extract some of the “sur- musical group is available only on-line, plus” previously realized by consum- consumers are compelled to enter a ers. Amazon.Com’s recent experiments virtual space within which very de- in “variable pricing” anticipated this tailed forms of surveillance can take dis-aggregation by attempting to charge place. Electronic databases can keep customers different prices for the same track not only of who is reading or product, based on demographic infor- listening to what, but when and where. mation gleaned on-line from purchas- The exploitation of the labor of be- ers’“cookies” (Grossman, 2000). ing watched is thus crucially reliant upon public acceptance of the penetration of digital surveillance into the Digital Enclosure realm of “free” time. That this acceptance may not be immediately forth- The current deployment of the Inter- coming is reflected in surveys like the net for e-commerce may be viewed as 1999 Wall Street Journal-NBC poll cited an attempt to achieve in the realm of by Lester (2001) for its finding that consumption what the enclosure move- “privacy is the issue that concerns ment achieved in the realm of produc- Americans most about the twenty-first tion: an inducement to enter into a century, ahead of overpopulation, ra- relationship of surveillance-based rationalization. The process of digital enclo- cial tensions, and global warming” (p. sure can be defined, in these terms, as 27). Lawmakers have recognized the the process whereby activities for- importance to the digital economy of merly carried out beyond the monitor- assuaging these concerns and are at- ing capacity of the Internet are en- tempting to pass legislation to ensure folded into its virtual space. The process consumers a certain degree of “privacy is still very much in its early stages, but protection” (Labaton, 2000, p. A1). The is heavily underwritten by investments problem with such legislation from a in new media technologies (Schiller, business standpoint, and perhaps one 1999) and by the enthusiastic and of the reason it tends to get bogged breathless predictions of cyber-futur- down in committees, is that it threatens ists that continue to make their way to dry up the flow of surveillance- into the mass media. Lester (2001) notes generated information that is the life- that entrance into what I call the digital blood of the economy it ostensibly en- enclosure is often voluntary (at least for ables. the moment), but he coins an interest- The more promising approach, from ing term to suggest that consumers are a corporate perspective, has been to compelled to go on-line for an increas- attempt to reposition surveillance as a ing array of transactions by “the tyr- form of consumer control. The popu- anny of convenience” (p. 28). The cur- lar reception of the Internet as a means rent trend suggests that over time, of democratizing mediated interaction alternatives to this “tyranny” may be and surpassing the one-way, top-down increasingly foreclosed. The result is mass media certainly works in favor of that consumption and leisure behav- this attempt. Thus, the claims of the iors will increasingly migrate into vir- cyber-celebrants, such as George Gild- 239

CSMC ANDREJEVIC er’s (1994) oft-cited prediction that “The can life: the mass market” (Lewis, force of microelectronics will blow 2000), it contributes to the deployment apart all the monopolies, hierarchies, of what might be called “the mass soci- pyramids, and power grids of estab- ety repressive hypothesis.” The latter lished industrial society” (p. 180) line underwrites the ostensibly subversive up neatly with the corporate promise potential of interactivity even as it that the interactive digital market is “a stimulates the productivity of con- customer’s paradise,” presumably be- sumer labor. The most familiar version cause the “customer is in control” of this hypothesis suggests that mass (Mougayar, 1998, p. 176). Casting the production worked to stiﬂe the forms net slightly wider, it is worth investigat- of individuation and self-expression ing the extent to which the celebration that will be fostered in the upcoming of the progressive potential of interac- digital revolution: that the incitement tivity in some strands of media theory to divulge our consumption-related be- helps to promote the advantages of havior (and what else is there, from a entry into the digital enclosure. The marketing perspective?) paradoxically more we view this enclosure as a site represents a subversion of the totalitar- for the potential revitalization of com- ian, homogenizing forces of the mass munity (Rheingold, 1993) and democ- market. As in the case of the deploy- racy (Brady, 1998; Kellner, 1999), the ment of the repressive hypothesis, the more inviting it appears. Similarly, as promised subversion turns out to be an Robins and Webster (1999) suggest, incitement to multiply the very forms the celebration of the information age of self-disclosure that serve the disci- as a post-industrial resolution to the plinary regime they purportedly sub- depredations of industrial society helps vert. As Marchand (1985) suggests, the promise of individuation—of the self- background the fundamental continu- overcoming of mass homogeneity— ity of the “information era” with the was a strategy of the regime of mass exploitative relations of industrial capi- society from its inception. Mass society’s talism. My intent is not to dismiss the ostensible self-overcoming becomes a progressive potential of interactive me- ruse for the incitement to self-disclo- dia outright, but rather to note how sure crucial to the rationalization of neatly their uncritical promotion lines what undoubtedly remains a form of up with the interests of those who mass consumption. would deploy the interactive capability of new media to exploit the work of being watched. The Example of TiVo In short, the promise of the “revolutionary” potential of new media bears Recent developments in television a marked similarly to the deployment technology can perhaps provide a more of the supposedly subversive potential concrete example of how the work of of sex that Foucault (1976/1978) out- being watched is deployed to rational- lines in his discussion of the “repres- ize the work of watching. The emer- sive hypothesis.” When, for example, gence of digital VCR technology, in- the New York Times informs its readers cluding TiVo, ReplayTV, and that the advent of interactive digital Microsoft’s Ultimate TV, anticipates television is “the beginning of the end the way in which the digital enclosure of another socialistic force in Ameri- overcomes the limitations of the mass 240

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 media while enhancing their productiv- even better than the viewer himself. (Lewis, ity. The rudimentary data generated 2000, p. 38) by Nielsen Media Research, based on a sample of some 5,000 homes, may Even as it retrieves programming for have been good enough for the stan- viewers, the digital VCR doubles as a dardized advertising fare offered by monitoring device in the service of the pre-interactive television, but it clearly system’s operators, creating a detailed cannot provide the information neces- “time and motion study” of viewing sary to custom-tailor advertising to the habits that can be sold to advertisers 105 million households with television and producers. In the panoptic regis- sets in the United States. As Daryl ter, the digital VCR becomes an auto- Simm, the former head of worldwide mated consumption confessional: an media programming for Procter & incitement to divulge the most inti- Gamble, and the current head of me- mate details of one’s viewing habits. dia at the Omnicom conglomerate re- In this respect, the digital VCR represents a preliminary attempt to bring cently put it, the activity of television viewing within The measurement we use today is very the monitoring reach of the digital en- crude....It’s an average measurement of closure. The enticement to consumers the number of viewers watching an indi- is that of convenience and customiza- vidual program that does not even mea- tion (perhaps even self-expression). As sure the commercial break. When you Lewis (2000) puts it, “Over time, the think about improvements in measuring viewer would create, in essence, his viewing habits, you think not about incre- own private television channel, stored mental changes but great leaps. (Lewis, on a hard drive in the black box, tai- 2000, p. 41) lored with great precision to his interests” (p. 38). There is a degree of truth The developers of digital VCR tech- to the claim of convenience: devices nology are looking to make that leap. like TiVo will allow viewers to more For home viewers, digital VCRs offer easily store and record those programs several advantages over their analog they want to watch. This is, perhaps, ancestors: they can record several the compensation viewers receive in shows at the same time; they store exchange for providing detailed infor- dozens of hours of programming which mation about their viewing habits. They can be retrieved at a moment’s notice; will also be able to skip through com- and they automatically record pro- mercials in 30-second intervals, but this grams in response to keyword re- advantage is being rendered obsolete quests. From the advertisers’ perspec- by the integration of advertising con- tive, digital VCRs offer a highly tent into the program itself (Elliott, detailed form of demographic monitor- 2000). ing. As a rather celebratory piece about Drawing on the promotional strat- TiVo in The New York Times put it, egy of the digital economy, celebrants While the viewer watched television, the of the new technology have adopted box would watch the viewer. It would the “revolutionary” promise that new record the owner’s viewing habits in a way media will transfer control to viewers that TV viewing habits have never been and consumers as a means of promot- recorded....Overtime,thebox would ing their products. One of the early come to know what the viewer liked maybe advertising spots for TiVo, for ex- 241

CSMC ANDREJEVIC ample, featured two bouncers throw- of the revolutionary promise of the ing a network executive through his new technology, the champions of sub- plate glass window, enacting the de- versive chic close ranks with their os- throning of centralized corporate con- tensible foes: neo-liberal propagan- trol. This image corresponds with the dists like Wriston (1992) and Gilder description in The New York Times of (1994). TiVo as a challenge to the mass market Perhaps not surprisingly—given the and top-down, centralized planning. anticipated role of TiVo in allowing for According to this account, when comprehensive demographic monitor- viewed through the lens of the new ing—the “transnational bosses” aren’t “freedom” that TiVo ostensibly offers quivering in their boots. Rather, they consumers, “The entire history of com- have been investing whole-heartedly mercial television suddenly appears to in the technology that will purportedly have been a Stalinist plot erected, as it undermine their fiefdom. In 1999, Time has been, on force from above rather Warner, Disney, NBC and CBS in- than choice from below” (Lewis, 2000, vested a combined total of more than p. 41). This retelling of history pro- $100 million in digital VCR technol- motes interactive technologies as one ogy (Lewis, 2000, pp. 40–41). Either more force bringing about what Sha- the prognosticators of democratic piro (1999) calls “the control revolu- utopia are overly optimistic or the tion,” whereby “new technology is al- “transnational bosses” of industry are lowing individuals to take power from working overtime against their own large institutions such as government, interests. History, combined with the corporations, and the media. To an market potential of interactive monitor- unprecedented degree, we can decide ing, tends to side with the bosses against what news and information we’re ex- the revolutionary promise. This ten- posed to” (p. xi). dency is not inherent in the technology Disturbingly, this perspective is not itself, which, as Lessig (1999) points unique to mainstream news outlets and out, lends itself to diverse uses depend- business-oriented futurism, as evi- ing on how it is configured and de- denced by the fact that Adbusters, the ployed. Rather it is a reflection of the “hip,” alternative magazine of media imperatives of the decisions we make criticism and culture jamming, hailed about how to use those technologies TiVo as a technology that “struck true and upon the pressures exerted by fear into the hearts of the transnational those in a position to develop and bosses,” because it “sticks it to every implement the Internet of the future. broadcast advertiser” (Flood, 2001, p. The increasing privatization of the net- 17). The Adbusters article goes on to work infrastructure combined with the claim that TiVo is among those new- recent spate of merger activity de- media technologies that herald “some- signed to exploit the commercial po- thing revolutionary. Something almost tential of the Internet suggests those purely democratic. Something essen- applications that promise to be com- tially non-commercial, driven not by mercially successful (economically price but by value. At long last, the profitable) will likely take top priority. people—could it be true?—would have All of which should come as no sur- control of what they wanted to hear prise to those familiar with the history and see” (2001, p. 17). In this portrayal of electronic media in the United 242

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States—a history that has largely been be tailored to match the demographics the story of technological develop- of each household and, eventually, of ments adapted to commercial ends. individual viewers; second, the line be- Often, as the critical history compiled tween content and advertising will con- by Solomon and McChesney (1993) tinue to blur to the point of extinction. suggests, this story has followed a pat- If, as Gates (1996) suggests, every tern whereby non-commercial and item of clothing, every location, and community-oriented uses are displaced every product in a television show can— by commercial applications as the me- within the context of an interactive dium is developed over time. Despite medium—double as both an advertis- the claims of those who herald the ing appeal and a clickable purchase subversive potential of the Internet— point, all viewing counts as work in the whether in the realm of theory or popu- sense outlined by Jhally and Livant lar culture—there is little evidence to (1986). Indeed, all activity of virtually suggest the Internet will enact a radical any kind that can be monitored within departure from this pattern. On the this enclosure becomes work, as in the contrary, applications originally her- example of Mitch Maddox’s DotCom- alded as subversive of centralized cor- pound. In the case of interactive televi- porate control, such as Napster and sion, the added convenience of cus- Freenet, are already being tailored to tomization may well work to maximize serve commercial purposes. If it is not not just the relative time devoted to the difficult to imagine how interactive me- work of watching, but overall viewing dia could help promote more demo- time. The Replay Corporation has al- cratic forms of mediated communica- ready found that “its customers watch, tion, it is even easier to envision their on average, three hours more televi- role in allowing for ever more sophisti- sion each week than they did before cated techniques for the exploitation of they got the box” (Lewis, 2000, p. 40). the work of being watched. The model of interactive television Whether or not TiVo and its com- is generalizable to an increasing vari- petitors are ultimately successful, they ety of activities that take place within are helping to forge the commercial the digital enclosure—and, to the extent paradigm of interactive media as a that monitoring is involved, more and means of inducing viewers to watch more activities seem to fall under the more efficiently. Subscribers to TiVo— umbrella of consumption. The work of or to the next generation of interactive being watched can, in other words, television—will help lead the way into a help to rationalize the entire spectrum digital enclosure wherein the work of of consumption-related activities that watching can be as closely monitored have traditionally taken place beyond as was the manual labor overseen by the monitoring gaze of the workplace. Frederick Taylor. The compilation of The general outlines of a commercial detailed demographic profiles of view- model for interactive media can thus ers will be facilitated by computer stor- be gleaned from the example of TiVo. age and retrieval techniques so as to Its main components are: customiza- ensure “wasted” watching will be kept tion (the disaggregation of demand to a minimum. The celebrants of mass curves, the direct linkage between a customization envision this will take specific act of production and a tar- place in two ways: first, advertising will geted act of consumption), interactivity 243

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(the ability to monitor consumers in sic selections downloaded by users, but, the act of consumption), off-loading potentially, the retrieval of their entire labor to consumers (who perform the on-line music inventory. It may well work of generating their own demo- offer companies like Bertelsmann the graphic information), and the develop- ability to peer into subscribers’ virtual ment of an on-going relationship with CD-cabinets and eventually to cata- consumers (that allows for the exploita- logue their actual listening habits in tion of demographic information gath- order to market to them more effec- ered over time). tively. Just as TiVo offloads the work of Perhaps not surprisingly, several ele- market research to consumers who add ments of this business model can be to their profile of preferences with ev- discerned in the development of a re- ery program they select, Napster poten- cent, supposedly subversive media tially offloads this work to users who technology: that of the music file- share files on-line. Moreover, as the sharing utility Napster. As Wired maga- Wired article notes, the Napster model zine recently noted in a short aside to also offloads infrastructure to consum- its celebratory coverage of the revolu- ers, whose home computers become tionary potential of “peer-to-peer” net- the repository for the music files traded working, Napster represents a forward- on-line. Napster technology makes pos- looking business model for the on-line sible the future envisioned by Gates economy: “the system keeps customer (1996), wherein subscribers will be able relationships in-house, but outsources to download music to portable digital the lion’s share of infrastructure back devices and to pay according to how to a captive audience. It’s...clear that often they plan to listen to an indi- a better music-industry strategy would vidual track. In this respect the future of online music and television delivery be not to ban Napster’s technology, envisioned by the industry represents but to make it their own” (Kuptz, 2000, the application of mediated interactiv- p. 236). The German publishing giant ity to the emerging paradigm of surveil- Bertelsmann, with a major presence in lance-based customization. The result the recording industry, clearly agrees, is the promise that consumers will be as evidenced by its decision to enter able to perform the work of being into a partnership with Napster. This watched with even greater efficiency. arrangement should not be viewed as an aberration or a “sellout” on the part of Napster—whose ostensible assault on Conclusion the record industry was not a subversion of market logic per se, but one Rumors of the death of privacy in more example of the “creative destruc- the 21st century have been greatly exag- tion” that Schumpeter (1947) famously gerated. The increasingly important attributed to the process of capitalist role of on-line surveillance in the digi- development: the replacement of an tal economy should be construed not older business paradigm by a newer as the disappearance of privacy per se, one. but as a shift in control over personal Like TiVo, Napster-style technology information from individuals to private allows for the comprehensive docu- corporations. The information in ques- mentation of on-line consumption: it tion—behavioral habits, consumption enables not only the monitoring of mu- preferences, and so on—is emphatically 244

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 not being publicized. It is, rather, be- sion of the very forms of market con- ing aggregated into proprietary com- trol it serves, this promise invokes a modities, whose economic value is de- moment of critique. This is the flip side pendent, at least in part, upon the fact of Foucault’s assertion of the subject as that they are privately owned. Such the site of the reiteration of conditions commodities are integral to the exploi- of power. It is the critical moment tation of customized markets and the heralded by Butler’s (1997) assertion administration of the “flexible” mode that “Where conditions of subordina- of production associated with mass cus- tion make possible the assumption of tomization. Making markets more effi- power, the power assumed remains tied cient, according to this model, means to those conditions, but in an ambiva- surpassing the paradigm of the mass lent way” (p. 13). Subjection/subjectifi- market and its associated inefficien- cation suggests that the conditions of cies, including the cost of gathering power are not reproduced “automati- demographic information, of storing cally” but can be contested by the very inventory, and of attempting to sell a forms of subjectivity they produce. mass-produced product at a standard- From this perspective, it is telling that ized price. Interactive media com- in the celebratory discourse of the digi- bined with the development of com- tal revolution, centralized forms of mar- puter memory and processing speed ket control are re-presented as homolo- allow for the comprehensive forms of gous with their former opponent: surveillance crucial to the scientific totalitarian, centralized planning. In- management of consumption within triguing avenues for resistance open up the digital enclosure. in an era when the New York Times can Like the factory workers of the early th liken the television network system to 20 century, the consumers of the early 21st century will be subjected to more Stalinism. Such critiques might do well sophisticated monitoring techniques to start with the premises appealed to and their attendant forms of produc- by the digital revolution: that there is a tive discipline. The intended result is need for greater shared control of the the stimulation of the forces of con- economic and political processes that sumption—the indirect complement of shape our lives in an age of seemingly the enhanced productivity associated dramatic technological transformation. with network technology. If the effort Even if the promise of interactivity as a expended in shopping feels more and form of de-centralization and shared more like labor, if we find ourselves control fails to be realized (as is sug- negotiating ever more complex sets of gested by the flurry of record-breaking choices that require more sophisti- merger activity in recent years), its im- cated forms of technological literacy, plicit assessment of the shortcomings the digital economy is poised to har- of mass society serves as a potential ness the productive power of that labor purchase point for a critique of the through the potential of interactivity. very rationalization it enables. In this At the same time, it is worth point- respect, the realization that the prom- ing out the potentially productive con- ise of interactivity bases its appeal on tradiction at the heart of the promise of perceived forms of exploitation (that the digital “revolution”. If indeed its ought to be overcome) lines up with promise is predicated on the subver- Foucault’s observation that where there 245

CSMC ANDREJEVIC is power, there is also, always, the po- tomized settings don’t have to be recon- tential for resistance. ﬁgured, the “cookie” doubles as a Of central interest from a critical digital butler for marketers, providing perspective, therefore, is the extent to detailed browsing information about which the marketers of the digital revo- online consumers. It is hard not to lution continue to base its appeal upon imagine that the same would be true of the interpellation of an “active,” em- other forms of digital butlers, whose powered consumer. As consumers start allegiance remains rather more am- to realize that their activity feels more biguous than Negroponte implies. As like labor (ﬁlling out online surveys, these services become increasingly in- taking the time to “design” customized visible and fade into the background, products and services) and less like the increasingly monitored and trans- empowerment, it is likely that the ex- parent consumer comes to the fore. plicit appeal to shared control will be In the face of the emergence of in- replaced by the emerging trend toward creasingly ubiquitous and invisible automated, autonomous forms of “con- forms of monitoring, the appeal to pri- venient” monitoring. This is the direc- vacy is often enlisted as a form of tion anticipated by futurists like Negro- resistance. This type of resistance is ponte (1995) and the planners behind rendered problematic by the fact that the MIT “Project Oxygen,” whose goal what is taking place—despite the recur- is to make computers as invisible and ring claim that the end of privacy is ubiquitous as air. Their approach rep- upon us—is the extensive appropriation resents a retreat from the version of the of personal information. More informa- “active” consumer associated with ex- tion than ever before is being privat- plicitly participatory forms of data gath- ized as it is collected and aggregated so ering that characterized some of the that it can be re-sold as a commodity or early experiments in interactivity (the incorporated into the development of “design your own sneaker” or “write a customized commodities. The enclo- review of this book” approach). In- sure and monopolization of this infor- stead, the goal is the proliferation of an mation reinforces power asymmetries increasingly invisible, automated, and in two ways: by concentrating control autonomous network. The agency of over the resources available for the the active consumer is displaced onto production of subjects’ desires and de- what Negroponte (1995) calls “the digi- siring subjects, and by the imposition tal butler.” Interactivity will likely be of a comprehensive panoptic regime. increasingly reformulated as inter-pas- The digital enclosure has the potential sivity insofar as the goal is to make the to become what Giddens (1981), follow- monitoring process as unobtrusive as ing Goffman, terms a “total institu- possible. The call to “action” will be tion.” The good news, perhaps, is that displaced onto the ubiquitous technol- once the red-herring of the “death” of ogy, whose autonomy is designed to privacy is debunked, the enclosure of replace that of the consumer/viewer. personal information can be properly Perhaps an early incarnation of this addressed as a form of exploitation unobtrusive form of monitoring is the predicated on unequal access to the browser “cookie.” Designed to increase means of data collection, storage, and convenience by allowing a site to re- manipulation. A discussion of surveil- member a particular visitor so that cus- lance might then be couched in terms 246

THE WORK OF BEING WATCHED JUNE 2002 of conditions of power that compel convenience or customization. For too entry into the digital enclosure and long, the discussion of mediated inter- submission to comprehensive monitor- activity has tended to assume that as ing as a means of stimulating and ratio- long as the Internet allowed unfettered nalizing consumption. The way in interactivity, questions of network con- which the promise of participation is trol and ownership were rendered moot deployed as an incentive to submit to by the revolutionary potential of the the work of being watched might be technology itself. Perhaps it is not too further illuminated by the extension of much to hope that an understanding of models of “concertive control” (Papa, the relation of interactivity to disciplin- Auwal, & Singh, 1997; Tompkins & ary surveillance and, thus, to the labor Cheney, 1985) to the realm of con- of being watched might work to counter sumer labor. Additionally, such a dis- the unwonted euphoria of the utopian cussion would necessarily address the cyber-determinists and to refocus the questions of who controls the means of question of the fate of collective con- surveillance and to what ends, how this trol over personal information. Other- power is reproduced through subjec- wise, we may all ﬁnd ourselves toiling tion to interactive monitoring, who ben- productively away in the DotCom- eﬁts from the work of being watched, pound, narrowcasting the rhythms of and who is compelled to surrender our daily lives to an ever smaller and control over personal information in more exclusive audience of private exchange for a minimum “wage” of corporations. ᮀ References

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