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Channel 4: Big Brother
Here is the official site of Britain's Channel 4, and their Big Brother show. It looks just as horrid and insulting to personal freedom to privacy and intelligence as the US copycat version.
CBS News: Surveillance Society
This two-hour CBS newscast report (November 12th, 1999) by Drew Griffin makes the point that "you may have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide." It isn't what I have to hide that is bothering me so much about this subject, it is my right to privacy that I am being forced to give up that bothers me. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, certainly not Big Brother watching me from atop his pole, or hidden behind some smoky, foggy plastic dome in the ceiling! I have a lot to give up by losing my rights to privacy and want to be left alone.
Television v Reality: Dawson's Creek v Anyone's Life
I would almost bet money on the fact that young Skip Frederikson here has a job in some public relations firm, writing terrible prose such as this essay. Frederikson explains how closely the "realistic, deep, affecting, beautifully written, and just damn cool," show Dawson's Creek can mirror the everyday life of "intelligent teenagers." This is so bad that it is almost intriguing . . . but not really.
Their So-Called Lives
This article from Time magazine by Ginia Bellefonte (July 31st, 1995) discusses the bland, packaged "reality" of MTV's Real Life, and Road Rules television shows.
Slide Towards Surveillance Society
This Christian Science Monitor article (February 26th, 2000) by Laurent Belsie has this quote from Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City: "1984 may have simply been too early a date. We are now approaching a time when we will be living in a surveillance society where all our actions and actions will be monitored." Rapidly approaching, or already living in?
The Emerging Surveillance Society In New Zealand
This is the conclusion of Tim McBride's contribution to the 1994 Auckland Winter Lecture series, and discusses various methods of government surveillance.
Dr. Bernie Vigod Memorial Lecture November 1996
This lecture (November 1996) by Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Bruce Phillips, is very informative, and worth a read.
Privacy As A Human Right: The Wave Of The Future
This article by Thomas Riley (November 1999) discusses Canadian Commissioner of Privacy, Bruce Phillip's, annual report on surveillance (1999). Phillips succinctly pointed out the very real threat to our democratic freedoms, and our essential human rights that some of the current surveillance technology poses.
CBS Survivor's Homepage
This is the place to really get one's fill of this CBS blockbuster television show, in which the chosen people allow the cameras to follow them through the travails and rivalries completely manufactured by the networks. This Reality TV stuff is so very far from any type of reality I've ever known, but hey, seems most of America is ready to have their lives lived vicariously for them by these mannequins it makes me wonder. Am I missing something here? Have the body snatchers already taken over?
CBS Big Brother
You too can take part in this "sadistic anthropological experiment." Visit CBS' Big Brother site, and find out how. Subject yourself to the insanity of playing the role of rat in a maze! Revel in the attention of America's couch potatoes and dumbed-down population! How can you pass up the opportunity to be a "star?" I guess I should make clear that I have played the extra in one or two productions that made it onto television, but participate in this schlock? I don't think so!
Joe Hollywood's The Best Crap On Television: Reality
Find out when and where you can see all the reality programming on television today! Hurry, don't miss out! Don't miss your programming!
Christian Retreat
I actually saw Nicky Cruz speak at the Christian Retreat as a very young man of about 9 or 10. Cruz wrote the book, Run Baby Run, about his life as the leader of a street gang, the Mau-Maus, in 1950s New York City, and his subsequent conversion to Christianity by a persistent minister. He was also the inspiration for the book, Cross and the Switchblade. This site states that their "Reality Television is focused on giving people a taste for the 'reality' of Christ." Why they felt a need to put notations around 'reality' gives me pause for thought, but hey, that's my own thing. For those who you into televised gospel, and good old Southern Non-Denominational Christian Fundamentalism, this is the spot for you!
Even More Reality TV
This is a light-hearted rant about Reality television by Jim Mowreader (November 28th, 1999), in which he suggests some ideas for other Reality based television programming.
The Construction Of Reality In Television News
This report by Mark Peace details just how artificially constructed the news presentations really are on television, and how the news is mainly programming. Just who is being programmed by this stuff?
Reality TV Links
This is exactly what it says it is - a bunch of links to terrible television programming.
Americans Are Fascinated With Television's Trash Reality
This is a delightful little rant by Digital Collegian columnist Mark Partridge (July 28th, 1998) on the American sheeple's love of terrible, programming television.
Television & Reality
This insightful piece dissects reality as portrayed by the television.
The Truman Show
This is the official Paramount Pictures Web site for The Truman Show, a movie directed by Peter Weir and starring Jim Carry, about a young man who was adopted as a baby by the Omnicam Corporation to become the main subject of the longest running program in history. Truman's entire life is in front of cameras, and he lives inside a huge set, with hundreds of supporting actors and crew who help perpetuate the illusion that he is living a real life. Damn creepy movie, but quite funny too. Take a gander.
Big Brother: CBS's Black Eye
This Washington Post article by Tom Shales (July 6th, 2000) is amazing coming from the Washington Post, one of the leading power establishment mouthpieces. But in this article, Shales shreds on CBS in a satisfyingly honest take, writing how he found the new show "Big Brother" proves "one hour can be a mighty long time." Obviously Shales did not like this show. Maybe there is hope, but how many times have "critics" been wrong before?
Success In The Surveillance Society
This Security Management magazine article by Robert Poole, and Derek Williams (May 1996) gives a glowing report on how well CCTV is working to cut down crime, and to speed up police response to crime as it happens. "Smith, who recovered from his injuries, had reason to be grateful he was living in what some have called the Surveillance Society." Unfortunately, there isn't any reference to where this speedy response took place, just that it did. So who knows in this day and age of infotainment, an age characterized by meme-splicing together news and advertising with no visible seam?
NYC Surveillance Camera Project
A dedicated group of volunteer researchers have gone out walking the city streets and side-walks of the Big Apple, searching out each and every camera they could find that keeps an eye on any and all public spaces. The researchers have discovered a grand total of 2,397 so far. They are always on the lookout for more, so if you spot one that isn't on any of their maps (which you can access here) let them know, and they will be sure to add it.
Video Camera Surveillance: Frequently Asked Questions
This is a great site, with all kinds of facts about surveillance cameras, how they work, and if they really add to the level of public safety.
Public Surveillance Privacy Guidelines
This document from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, in British Colombia, Canada, (June 21st, 2000) titled Public Surveillance Privacy Guidelines, has this as its opening paragraph: "There is a very real risk that within a few short years British Colombians could find themselves subjected to pervasive, routine and random surveillance of their ordinary, lawful public activities. Surveillance systems have, in recent years, proliferated; they are operated by a wide variety of public and private bodies. The result is widespread surveillance of our ordinary lives. There is a very real prospect that this will evolve into a blanket system of automated surveillance. In and of itself, each system might be lawful and reasonable, but the synergy of all systems operating together is something the public is likely to regret."
Surveillance Camera Players
This is the brilliant site of the Surveillance Camera Players. See some of their performances, read some of their comments, and find out how to get involved. Stop the cameras!
Surveillance, Order, & Social Control
This study, conducted from October1994 to May 1997, seems to show that CCTV is utterly useless in preventing crime, but great for those who feel they have the right to spy secretly on their fellow citizens, and judge them on nothing more than their appearance in a blurry video image.
Privacy Issues: Wearable Cameras v Surveillance Cameras
This is a very entertaining and informative dissertation by Steve Mann, (1995) on how wearing cameras could change the Surveillance Society even more, and even possibly for the better. Unless everyone were required to wear one. Mann wears a camera that records and puts the images up on his Web site for the world to see. His argument is that if someone is going to use a camera, they should be involved personally, not have the camera on the top of a pole at some city street corner, recording anonymously 24 hours a day.
Spytv.org Reports
This page has a large collection of links to sites, and reports on the Surveillance Society, covering all sorts of surveillance issues. This is a must visit site.
Surveillance Systems: Towards An Electronic Panoptical Society
This interview of David Lyon by Christian Holler (May 22nd, 1997) explores where we as a society are heading in terms of surveillance, and its pervasiveness in our everyday lives.
What Is The Surveillance Society?
This is Seminar 6 by Nathan Hall, who delves into just what exactly the Surveillance Society is, and what it means to our freedom from intrusive government, and the postmodern meaning of Big Brother.
The Electronic Eye: The Rise Of The Surveillance Society
This is a 1999 review of David Lyons' scholarly book The Electronic Eye (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), which discusses the growth of mass surveillance, and this trend's effects on society as a whole. Lyons offers several case studies of automated surveillance models and systems that do not require controllers.
Shooting Back On Exhibit At MIT
Here you can see many of the inventions of Steve Mann, who shot the documentary about a filming documentary about the surveillance society. This was an exhibition held in October 1997. Mann has invented cyberpunk contraptions which immediately bring to my mind David Brin's science fiction novel Earth (New York: Spectra Books, 1990). Brin describes an inter-generation conflict between elders who form wear video cameras and form vigilante gangs to film everybody, and the young, who just want some privacy.
Adbusters: The Zen TV Experiment
This is one brilliant look by Bernard McGrane at just what modern television programming really involves, and why it is called programming. McGrabe describes an activity he asks his students to take part in, called the Technical Events Test. You'll have to read about it yourself here, but what the test basically does is "dramatically reveals the functions of the political institution of television by: (a) training us to shorten our attention spans, (b) making ordinary life appear dull, (c) injecting a hypnotic quality into our lives, and (d) coercing us into its reality."
George Gerbner & The Cultural Environment Movement
Check out the Disinformation dossier on George Gerbner & The Cultural Environment Movement.
Disinformation Dossier On The Surveillance Camera Players
Check out the Disinformation dossier on the Surveillance Camera Players.
Disinformation Dossier On John Safran
Check out the Disinformation dossier on John Safran.
Disinformation Dossier On The Military-Nintendo Complex
Check out the Disinformation dossier on The Military-Nintendo Complex.
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