Amazon.com description: Product Description: The study of surveillance is more relevant than ever before. Thefast growth of the field of surveillance studies reflects both theurgency of civil liberties and privacy questions in the war onterror era and the classical social science debates over the powerof watching and classification, from Bentham to Foucault andbeyond. In this overview, David Lyon, one of the pioneers ofsurveillance studies, fuses with aplomb classical debates andcontemporary examples to provide the most accessible and up-to-dateintroduction to surveillance available.

The book takes in surveillance studies in all its breadth, fromlocal face-to-face oversight through technical developments inclosed-circuit TV, radio frequency identification and biometrics toglobal trends that integrate surveillance systems internationally.Surveillance is understood in its ambiguity, from caring tocontrolling, and the role of visibility of the surveilled is takenas seriously as the powers of observing, classifying and judging.The book draws on international examples and on the insights ofseveral disciplines; sociologists, political scientists andgeographers will recognize key issues from their work here, but sowill people from media, culture, organization, technology andpolicy studies. This illustrates the diverse strands of thought andcritique available, while at the same time the book makes its owndistinct contribution and offers tools for evaluating bothsurveillance trends and the theories that explain them.

This book is the perfect introduction for anyone wanting tounderstand surveillance as a phenomenon and the tools for analysingit further, and will be essential reading for students and scholarsalike.