Webcams, TV Shows and Mobile phones: Empowering Exhibitionism

Abstract

The roles of visual representations have been multiplied. In contrast of being targets of the ever-increasing surveillance, people seek to play an active role in the production of images, thus, reclaiming the copyright of their own lives. In this article, three examples of this development are examined. 'Reality shows' in TV aim to create an impression of the viewer participating in crime control. Mobile phones with cameras enable individuals to become active subjects in circulating images and to participate in 'counter-surveillance'. 'Home webcams' present daily lives of individuals in the Internet, generating new subjectivities. They change the conventional code of what can or cannot be shown, and thus, expose cultural tensions surrounding epistemological conceptions of vision, gender, identities, and moralities. By revealing their intimate lives, people are liberated from shame and the 'need' to hide, which leads to something called 'empowering exhibitionism'. These deliberately produced images contest many of the conventional ways of thinking how visibility and transparency connote with power and control. To be (more) seen is not always to be less powerful. By rebelling against the shame embedded in the conception of the private, people refuse to be humble. They may gain power, but it does not head for control over others but, rather, blur and mix the lines of control. Televisualisation, cyberspace presentation, and mobile phone counter observation also raise new questions considering 'traditional' surveillance. Images can be played with, and can work as a form of resistance. Sometimes it is more radical to reveal than to hide.