Surveillance- Literature and Literal

            In David Lyon’s article “From Big Brother to Electric Panopticon”, he argues that George Orwell’s novel, “1984” has been surpassed in the technological realm, but some of the novel’s aspects of surveillance are still relevant to discuss today. According to the article, (Lyon, 1994) “while Nineteen Eighty-Four has in many ways been superseded technologically, limited but important aspects of its account of a surveillance society still remain relevant today”. It seems as though this article is intended for an audience of literary scholars. I say this because even at the beginning of the article, Lyon states (Lyon, 1994) “When I tell people that I am studying surveillance, and in particular investigating the ways that our personal details are stored in computer databases, the most common reaction is to invoke George Orwell”. This would not be a common response from a person who does not study literature. The article also invokes history, sociology, literature, and even a bit of law. The article is definitely intended for an academic audience, with undertones of relating to the every-day individual. I found the article interesting because it attempted to make an older work on surveillance from 1949 relevant to today’s ever changing surveillance society. This is not an easy feat to accomplish because surveillance has changed so much in the last decade, let alone the last 60-70 years.

 In Charles Duhigg’s article “How Companies Learn Your Secrets”, he discusses many points and purposes, the main one being that companies go to great lengths to learn personal information about their customers for marketing purposes. He has a recurring theme in the article that ties to my “umbrella purpose” of the article. This point is that when a woman is pregnant, companies like Target try to market to you like crazy. As the author says, (Duhigg, 2012)” new parents are a retailer’s Holy Grail”. This article is intended for the audience of the everyday person, with particular emphasis on mothers, fathers and family people. The article incorporated economics in a major way, as well as psychology, sociology, and even a bit of anthropology. I found the article very interesting for a couple of reasons. Although it was a pretty lengthy read, it really shed light on what lengths companies are willing to go to in order to get your personal information and better market their products to you. I also think that the invasiveness of how these companies go about doing these things is pretty eye opening. I completely agreed with this article because I notice these things all the time in my own life. If I am looking at a video on YouTube and the video finishes, YouTube then prompts me with different videos of people I watched earlier in the day, or last week even. If I am on Google and I look up some cologne to buy, I log on to Facebook and all I see are cologne advertisements. The whole idea is pretty wild to me and I feel like my privacy has been invaded in many ways, but not so much in others. It is a weird dynamic that is different for each person and that is why it is important that people know about these things.

References:

Duhigg C. 2012. How Companies Learn Your Secrets. New York Times. Accessed via internet at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?_r=1&ref=targetcorporation on April 16, 2012.

Lyon D. 1994. From Big Brother To Electric Panopticon. The Electronic Eye- The Rise of Surveillance Society. Accessed online at: http://bb.tacoma.uw.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_992_1%26url%3D on April 16, 2012.