Authors:
Elizabeth A. Brunner, Idaho State University, USA
Kevin M. DeLuca, University of Utah, USA
Email: : bruneliz@isu.edu
Published: October 7, 2019
https://doi.org/10.22492/ijpbs.5.si.05
Citation: Brunner, E. A. & DeLuca, K. M. (2019). Creative Confrontations: Exploring Activism, Surveillance, and Censorship in China and the United States. IAFOR Journal of Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences, 5(si). https://doi.org/10.22492/ijpbs.5.si.05
Abstract
Extensive surveillance networks, or the Internet-enabled global surveillance societies (GSS), know no political borders. This paper turns to a country well acquainted with surveillance and censorship as well as a country engaged in frequent protest – China – to discuss what rhetorical devices citizens imbricated in the GSS can deploy to create practices of resistance. We ask the following question herein: what rhetorical devices are citizens imbricated in the GSS deploying to create practices of resistance and how can a networked approach to activism aid in thwarting surveillance? We think through these examples using Deleuze’s concept of the assemblage and propose that creativity in the form of collective authorship, working under the cover of the commonplace, and organizing rhizomatically across wild public screens all prove to be useful tools for protestors surrounded by surveillance.
Keywords
activism, global surveillance, assemblages, U.S., China