Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Stuart, A., and Levine, M. (2017) Beyond ‘nothing to hide’: When identity is key to privacy threat under surveillance. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 47: 694–707. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2270 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2270 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Beyond ‘nothing to hide’
T2 - When identity is key to privacy threat under surveillance
AU - Stuart, Avelie
AU - Levine, Mark
N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Stuart, A., and Levine, M. (2017) Beyond ‘nothing to hide’: When identity is key to privacy threat under surveillance. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 47: 694–707. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.2270 which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2270 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
PY - 2017/10/1
Y1 - 2017/10/1
N2 - Privacy is psychologically important, vital for democracy, and in the era of ubiquitous and mobile surveillance technology, facing increasingly complex threats and challenges. Yet surveillance is often justified under a trope that one has ‘nothing to hide’. We conducted focus groups (N = 42) on topics of surveillance and privacy and using discursive analysis, identify the ideological assumptions and the positions that people adopt to make sense of their participation in a surveillance society. We find a premise that surveillance is increasingly inescapable, but this was only objected to when people reported feeling misrepresented, or where they had an inability to withhold aspects of their identities. The (in)visibility of the surveillance technology also complicated how surveillance is constructed. Those interested in engaging the public in debates about surveillance may be better served by highlighting the identity consequences of surveillance, rather than constructing surveillance as a generalised privacy threat.
AB - Privacy is psychologically important, vital for democracy, and in the era of ubiquitous and mobile surveillance technology, facing increasingly complex threats and challenges. Yet surveillance is often justified under a trope that one has ‘nothing to hide’. We conducted focus groups (N = 42) on topics of surveillance and privacy and using discursive analysis, identify the ideological assumptions and the positions that people adopt to make sense of their participation in a surveillance society. We find a premise that surveillance is increasingly inescapable, but this was only objected to when people reported feeling misrepresented, or where they had an inability to withhold aspects of their identities. The (in)visibility of the surveillance technology also complicated how surveillance is constructed. Those interested in engaging the public in debates about surveillance may be better served by highlighting the identity consequences of surveillance, rather than constructing surveillance as a generalised privacy threat.
KW - identity
KW - impression management
KW - privacy
KW - resistance
KW - surveillance
U2 - 10.1002/ejsp.2270
DO - 10.1002/ejsp.2270
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85021807858
VL - 47
SP - 694
EP - 707
JO - European Journal of Social Psychology
JF - European Journal of Social Psychology
SN - 0046-2772
IS - 6
ER -