Watchers, Watched, and Watching in the Digital Age: Reconceptualization of Information Technology Monitoring as Complex Action Nets
针对信息技术监控研究中忽视行动者关系动态和IT人工物多变性的局限，提出一个适用于多种监控关系的概念框架，并构建了信息技术监控的行动网络模型，强调IT人工物作为可编辑、可分配的开放对象，由多元异质行动者共同塑造。
Despite increasing studies of information technology (IT) monitoring, our understanding of how IT-mediates relations between the watcher and watched remains limited in two areas. First, either traditional actor-centric frameworks assuming predefined watcher-watched relationships (e.g., panopticon or synopticon) are adopted or monitoring actors are removed to focus on data flows (e.g., dataveillance, assemblages, panspectron). Second, IT monitoring research predominantly assumes IT artifacts to be stable, bounded, designed objects, with prescribed uses which provides an oversimplified view of actor relationships. To redress these limitations, a conceptual framework of veillance applicable to a variety of possible IT or non-IT-mediated relationships between watcher and watched is developed. Using the framework, we conduct a conceptual review of the literature, identifying IT-enabled monitoring and transformations of actors, goals, mechanisms and foci and develop an action net model of IT veillance where IT artifacts are theorized as equivocal, distributable and open for diverse use, open to edits and contributions by unbounded sets of heterogenous actors characterized by diverse goals and capabilities. The action net of IT veillance is defined as a flexible decentralized interconnected web shaped by multidirectional watcher-watched relationships, enabling multiple dynamic goals and foci. Cumulative contributions by heterogenous participants organize and manipulate the net, having an impact through influencing dispositions, visibilities and the inclusion/exclusion of self and others. The model makes three important theoretical contributions to our understanding of IT monitoring of watchers and watched and their relationships. We discuss implications and avenues for future studies on IT veillance.