Drone logic: Distributed, ubiquitous monitoring and the "Big Data" deluge

This presentation considers the figure of the drone as representative of the logic of monitoring and surveillance in the emerging "sensor society." We might line it up alongside other probes in the sensor society including smart phones, smart cars (that capture detailed data about how they are driven), and so on -- eventually encompassing the range of interactive devices (both personal and commercially or publicly owned and operated) that come to populate our lives in the digital era.
The promise of the drone is four-fold: it extends and multiplies the reach of the senses, it saturates times and spaces in which sensing takes place, and it tends towards the automation of data collection, processing, and response. In this regard, drone logic comes to permeate the forms of monitoring to which we are increasingly subject in the workplace, social life, and the economic and political realms. This presentation considers some of the implications for how data is put to use in the emerging "sensor society."
Mark Andrejevic is a distinguished media scholar who writes about surveillance, new media, and popular culture. He is Deputy Director and ARC QEII Research Fellow in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at The University of Queensland. He is interested in the ways in which forms of surveillance and monitoring enabled by the development of new media technologies and 'informational excess' impact the realms of economics, politics, and culture. He is the author of numerous publications on surveillance and media and has written several prominent books including, Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched (2004), iSpy: Surveillance and power in the interactive era (2007) and Infoglut: how too much information is changing the way we think and know (2013). He is presently working on a five-year, ARC funded project looking at public attitudes towards measures to regulate the collection and use of personal information online and over mobile networks.