Bellanova and González Fuster on Thinking Surveillance With/Again Netflix @ikkibop @FusterGloria @routledgebooks

Rocco Bellanova, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, and Gloria González Fuster, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB); Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (UNIR), are publishing No (Big) Data, No Fiction? Thinking Surveillance With/Against Netflix in The Politics and Policies of Big Data: Big Data Big Brother? (A. R. Saetnan, I. Schneider, and N. Green, eds., London: Routledge, Forthcoming)

Surveillance Studies often look at cultural products as pedagogical or heuristic devices, as if they were windows into the popular representation of surveillance practices. However, artworks may also be the (by-)products of consumers' surveillance. Online platforms like Netflix harvest vast amounts of data about clients' behaviour, so to predict their interests and produce more successful, profitable creations. In this chapter, we discuss how to think about surveillance with and against Netflix, focusing on the tensions between databases and narratives, and between politics and data-driven fiction. We explore how surveillance practices are both presented and performed when Big Data gleaned from viewers is used to tailor-script a series questioning mass surveillance, such as House of Cards. We argue that surveillance then displays itself as an embodied and transformative experience. While viewers can figure its inner workings in a more concrete manner, they are, at the same time, turned into data-breeding publics.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Language and Manipulation in House of Cards: A New Book from Sandrine Sorlin

Sandrine Sorlin, University of Aix-Marseille, has published Language and Manipulation in House of Cards: A Pragma-Stylistic Perspective (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016). Here from the publisher's website is a description of the book's contents.

This book is to date the first monograph-length study of the popular American political TV series House of Cards. It proposes an encompassing analysis of the first three seasons from the unusual angles of discourse and dialogue. The study of the stylistic idiosyncrasies of the ruthless main protagonist, Frank Underwood, is completed by a pragmatic and cognitive approach exposing the main characters’ manipulative strategies to win over the other. Taking into account the socio-cultural context and the specificities of the TV medium, the volume focuses on the workings of interaction as well as the impact of the direct address to the viewer. The book critically uses the latest theories in pragmatics and stylistics in its attempt at providing a pragma-rhetorical theory of manipulation.

House of Cards, David Cameron, and the Intersection of Life and Art

The Guardian checks in on how the popular Netflix U.S. spinoff of House of Cards tweaked David Cameron over his appearance in the Panama Papers. Demonstrating that life often intersects with art: actual tweets on the topic turn up in Frank Underwood's Twitter feed. The Independent reports another life/art link: the law firm involved in the Panama Papers transactions is supposed to have created them from a base set up in the condo used for shoots for the Miami Vice television series.

And the Guardian features a tweet from popular blogger and tweeter David Allen Green in its article. Carry on, Guardian.