Techno-pessimistic and techno-optimistic visions of surveillance and resistance in Europe

Abstract

Our study explores peoples’ visions of surveillance and resistance to surveillance, enabled through communication and digital platforms in Europe. The research involves future scenario development and analysis, which allows us to sketch out future outlooks concerning surveillance/resistance in Europe, examining how these visions reflect the main assumptions, fears and hopes about the future of societies in Europe. The analysis, which is anchored in surveillance studies, shows how the visions of surveillance and resistance are informed by people’s dispositions towards technology, which centre around techno-optimism and techno-pessimism, focusing either on the empowering or liberating forces of technology or on technology’s disabling and destructive power. These dispositions instruct ideas about the futures of Europe, seeing Europe as either a regulator or protector of people’s privacy and freedoms or as a surveillant apparatus, curtailing peoples’ freedom and democratic rights.