Exploring Relations Between Watchers And Watched In Control(Led) Systems: Strategies And Tactics

Using ethnographic observation within a number of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) control rooms as evidence, this paper documents the apparently trivial but subjectively meaningful types of technologically mediated interaction taking place between CCTV operators and those watched. It examines the operators' interpretations of the various incidents, individuals and social realities observed. In so doing, the author suggests a number of interesting social-phenomenological processes are occurring. These include: the formation and existence of disembodied relationships between watchers and watched across distanciated CCTV surveillance networks; an operator gaze incorporating care, control and creativity; the existence of hermeneutical narrative constructions among the operators. The latter practice can be empirically demonstrated through the operators' creation of 'celebrity characters', their attribution of pseudo-identities for cameo 'guest stars' and their playful characterisation of the framed action taking place in the spaces under observation. It is argued that such informal tactics, employed to both entertain and relieve pressure, are the unintended outcome of systemic strategies of control designed to induce conformity. They allow the operators to make sense of, bring meaning to and cope with relentless, often disjointed, imagery and with the emotional strain of the CCTV workplace culture. The paper also suggests that tactics are not limited to the watchers. The watched or Stars of CCTV appear to employ methods in a similar bid to manoeuvre themselves around the cameras. By considering the practices of watchers and watched, it is argued more generally that CCTV technology is a social medium, the people, places and objects watched functioning not simply as passive 'objects of information', but also as active 'subjects of communication'.