'Friendly' and 'noisy surveillance' through MapMyRun during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fletcher, Olivia (2022) 'Friendly' and 'noisy surveillance' through MapMyRun during the COVID-19 pandemic. Geoforum; journal of physical, human, and regional geosciences, 133. pp. 11-19.

Access the full-text of this item by clicking on the Open Access link.

Abstract

This paper considers the nature of social surveillance through the physical activity tracking app MapMyRun and examines how this was experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic during the UK and USA summer 2020 lockdowns. In contributing to debates in digital geographies around the entanglements of the fleshy and digital body, the paper responds to calls for research to recognise the increasing sociality of self-tracking (Couture, 2021), specifically considering how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, these apps offered a form of connection during a time of isolation. Using data from email and video interviews, I argue that whilst a Foucauldian account of surveillance can be used as a point of departure, it is limited in accounting for the social aspects of self-tracking. I therefore propose that applying Robinson's (2000) concept of 'noisy surveillance' to self-tracking is useful for understanding the messiness of surveillance in terms of the complications and noisiness involved in interactions in digital spaces, as well as the opportunities for performance management online particularly during lockdown.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	COVID-19, Foucault, Self-tracking, Social media, Social surveillance, ‘Noisy surveillance’
Divisions:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	29 Jun 2022 09:23
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 20:56
DOI:	10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.05.004
Open Access URL:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.05.004
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3157439