Investigating Everyday Life Surveillance and its Underlying Factors among the Students of University of Tabriz: Using the Modified Grounded Theory Approach

we are experiencing the era of transitions. One of the most important transitions is the transition from modern to postmodern surveillance in which the techniques of body regulation have evolved. A case in which ubiquity is one of its main features is known as the concept of the Post-Panopticon. In a general sense, Post-Panopticon refers to the everyday life surveillance in which the possibilities of non-spatial, horizontal, and internal surveillance (unlike in the past which was mostly spatial, vertical, and external) have increased with recent technological advances and the presence of power hierarchies in everyday life has become wider. The present study tries to achieve the mental perceptions of everyday life surveillance and identify its underlying factors.  

For this purpose, analysis using a qualitative approach was performed with the modified grounded theory approach. This approach developed by Kinoshita (2003), follows the evolutionary approach of Strauss and Corbin and is based on interactionism and interpretivism and the researcher has an interpretive role in the process of data formation and classification (Okura, 2019:230). But the difference between this approach and Strauss and Corbin’s approach is in the coding method. In the modified approach, systematic and strict coding are discarded and soft coding is used during which the axial coding step is eliminated and includes the two steps of open coding and selective coding. Finally, a storyline is presented that narrates the narrative based on words, concepts, categories, and the central category. Based on the modified approach, first, the theoretical literature was reviewed and then the research topic was defined before conducting the interviews. Participants included 16 master and PhD students of Tabriz University. The strategy of sampling was theoretical and the method of sampling was purposeful. To collect experimental data, in-depth interviews were used. Based on the modified approach, the interview data were analyzed in the two stages of coding (open coding and selective coding) and finally, the research storyline was presented after estimating the validity and reliability of the findings using the rigor technique.

The findings showed that based on the mental perceptions of the participants, the content of everyday life surveillance, both vertically and horizontally, is largely related to consumption patterns (eating, wearing, watching, etc.). Based on the findings, four main categories were extracted from the perceptions of the participants. These categories include stripping identity (in order to access to privacy), consumer-centered standardization (defining the standard subject based on consumption pattern), community-based surveillance (with the purpose of providing security, risk forecasting, and user-centered surveillance), and individualization of surveillance (internal surveillance from below). It was also found that everyday life surveillance largely occurs due to technology, especially, internet, and satellite technologies. These categories revealed that the discourse of consumer capitalism or the consumer-centered economy is the main factor in such surveillance. A discourse that becomes more liquid due to the development of technology. This means that consumer capitalism becomes non-spatial, non-temporal, and internal due to the Internet and cyberspace. Accordingly, the category of liquid capitalism was extracted as the central category of the study. In fact, identity stripping, consumer-centered standardization, community-based surveillance, and individualization of surveillance are the surveillance techniques of consumer capitalism. These techniques operate as mechanisms that feed each other and constitute the liquid capitalism apparatus. The findings of this qualitative study also showed the role of political economy in the emergence of a new form of surveillance. If Panopticon was the main feature of early capitalism, the Post-Panopticon is the main feature of liquid capitalism.