Jessica Chapman, a 2016 MA graduate of the communication program, has successfully submitted an article for publication in an upcoming special edition of the Media and Arts Law Review titled “Watching Me, Watching You: Surveillance, the Media and Law”. Chapman’s article, “A Different Kind of Shot: Policing, Media, and Body Worn Video” investigates the changing expectations of police work as body worn video devices become increasingly popular in the policing context and the subsequent logics that officers must adopt in order to record footage that can later be used as evidence.
Based on a chapter from her recently defended thesis, the article situates the adoption of body worn video within a broader war on police (and state) visibility and argues that by positioning these surveillance technologies directly on the body officers are forced to change the way they approach their work. Specifically, the adoption of these devices coupled with the expectation that officers will record usable visual evidence pushes officers to adopt the logic of their camera, essentially turning them into videographers. Chapman suggests that the utility of these devices in solving issues of police misconduct has been overstated in the dominant discourse and she questions whether the new set of skills that officers must adopt in order to properly use these surveillance cameras is a potential detriment to effective policing.
The Media and Arts Law Review is a quarterly, refereed journal organized by the University of Melbourne Law School. The journal examines all areas of media and arts law including areas such as Communications, Contempt, Copyright, Cultural Heritage, Defamation, Digitisation, Entertainment, Free Speech, Intellectual Property, Journalism, Privacy and Public Interest. The special surveillance edition is slated for publication in September 2016.
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 in Communication News, News
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