David Bell's Surveillance Is Sexy

Surveillance technology is often regarded as a negative component of society. Surveillance follows and normalises an imbalanced power dynamic between citizens and the state. Citizens are victims and targets in a surveillance society, while higher institutions hold the power. However, when surveillance technology enters personal spaces, the power dynamic shifts in favour of citizens. David Bell’s (2009) article “Surveillance Is Sexy” questions the possibility of resistance within surveillance, and poses webcam’s sexualisation as a form of that resistance (p. 203). I focus on personal webcams as an enabler of resistance against surveillance society, expanding beyond Bell’s (2009) idea of sexualisation as just one factor in the act of resistance,

349). Traditional surveillance technology is changed “to watch the watchers” (Marwick, 2012, 380). The concept of “sousveillance” is to resist against higher institutions. Webcams are a form of “sousveillance.” Users film themselves with the surveillance technology. They choose to be seen, unlike with traditional surveillance where they do not have a choice, setting the premise of

Users rarely make eye contact with traditional surveillance technology such as street cameras, but the webcam’s functionality forces users to gaze into the webcam. Users retain power over their spectators by gazing into the webcam and addressing the webcam’s presence, whether their spectators are anonymous or identifiable, “living in the eye of the camera mean[s] a person, people, institutions, organisations [are] no longer insular and immune” (Dennis, 2008, p. 348). Webcam spectators lose power and immunity, which correlates to the surveillance society and its institutions losing power and immunity. The act of looking is a “medium of control” (White, 2003, p. 9) and directing it at webcams asserts power over those on the other