The Surveillance Society will enable students to explore the range of ways in which new digital technologies are altering the boundaries between public and private, with important political and ethical implications. It will explore the ways in which we watch and are watched in contemporary society. There are many facets to this. At the broadest level there are debates (often generated by Foucauldian fears) about the increasing penetration of forms of knowledge, from market research to the emergence of vast databanks information. There is the rise of new modes of official surveillance: in our everyday lives we are surrounded by inconspicuous security cameras and 'spycams'. The concerns about the penetration of the 'private' sphere these occasion has led many to suggest that the public/private relationship as a whole is being reconfigured. And 'Reality-TV' has, it is argued, generated new forms of voyeurism (itself a topic of theorization and debate in film theory) by putting ordinary people under the 24-hour scrutiny of cameras (and microphones). Yet at the same time researchers tell of forms of resistance or seizure in response to these penetrations: people using webcams for their own purposes, using them to redefine their sense of self and their public identities.