On the poverty of a priorism: technology, surveillance in the workplace and employee responses

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Mason, D., Button, G., Lankshear, G., Coates, S. and Sharrock, W., 2002. On the poverty of a priorism: technology, surveillance in the workplace and employee responses. Information, Communication and Society, 5 (4), pp. 552-572. ISSN 1369-118X

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13691180208538806

Abstract

Many debates about surveillance at work are framed by a set of a priori assumptions about the nature of the employment relationship that inhibits efforts to understand the complexity of employee responses to the spread of new technology at work. In particular, the debate about the prevalence of resistance is hamstrung from the outset by the assumption that all apparently non-compliant acts, whether intentional or not, are to be counted as acts of resistance. Against this background this paper seeks to redress the balance by reviewing results from an ethnographic study of surveillance-capable technologies in a number of British workplaces. It argues for greater attention to be paid to the empirical character of the social relations at work in and through which technologies are deployed and in the context of which employee responses are played out.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Information, Communication and Society

Creators:

Mason, D., Button, G., Lankshear, G., Coates, S. and Sharrock, W.

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Place of Publication:

Abingdon

Date:

2002