Authoritarian practices in the digital age| 'Through a glass, darkly': Everyday acts of authoritarianism in the liberal West

Hintz, Arne ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9902-4736 and Milan, Stefania 2018. Authoritarian practices in the digital age| 'Through a glass, darkly': Everyday acts of authoritarianism in the liberal West. International Journal of Communication 12 , pp. 3939-3959.

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Abstract

Institutional practices undermining citizen agency and infringing on individual freedoms are typically associated with authoritarian countries. However, they are also proliferating in Western democracies. This article redefines data-based surveillance as a “Western” authoritarian and illiberal practice in the digital realm, resulting from state–industry collaboration and alienated from accountability mechanisms. Straddling critical data studies and surveillance studies, the article explores these dynamics of surveillance in the West by focusing on two dimensions: the institutionalization of governmental practices in law and the societal normalization of surveillance in popular cultural practices. It thus investigates the renegotiation of the boundaries of state power along two axes—top down and bottom up. It connects the notions of “authoritarian and illiberal practices” and “surveillance cultures,” asking how the former are produced, negotiated, and legitimized and reviewing their consequences for citizens and civil society. Based on empirical data from two projects exploring the interplay between citizenship and surveillance, the article argues that acts of authoritarianism in the West are institutionalized at the intersection of top-down governmental practices and bottom-up popular reactions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Additional Information:	Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd).
ISSN:	1932-8036
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 September 2018
Date of Acceptance:	7 July 2018
Last Modified:	05 May 2023 20:40
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/115132

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