新媒體研究：論生命政治的監控與互卸性

A New Media Study: On Biopolitical Surveillance and Interpassivity

徐敏揆(Min-Kuei Hsu)

指導教授 ： 包德樂

淡江大學/外國語文學院/英文學系碩士班/碩士(2015年)

https://doi.org/10.6846/TKU.2015.00166

摘要

以跨學科的方式，此論文意圖探索新媒體在人們日常生活中的影響，特別關注新媒體如何改變人們對隱私與監控的觀感，以及這些新興科技如何重組使用者在數位領域中的主體性。至於此論文的方法論，批判言說分析將用來解析社會環境及其中的社會變遷。此論文首先探討隱私與監控的議題，然後再探索新媒體使用者的主體性。 在第一章，繼傅柯的「生命政治」的概念，我嘗試著研究當代監控如何將其改變─也就是將生命的林林總總視為政治介入的核心─移植到人們習以為常的、日常生活中所接觸的新媒體（像是通訊、上網等等）。為了解開這議題，在此章的第一節，我首先定義新媒體所代表的意涵，然後再將這些意涵置於當代監控的脈絡下討論，特別是置於愛德華•斯諾登告發美國國家安全局的全球監控弊端的背景。在第二節，將谷歌眼鏡視為一種新媒體，我採用批判言說分析來解讀消費者針對谷歌眼鏡的商業廣告影片的評論。這是為了顯現谷歌眼鏡是如何透過言說的實踐被建構為一項最前衛的可穿式科技產品，藉此來隱藏此產品所涉及的隱私與監控的問題。 在第二章，我探究新媒體如何重組使用者的主體性。基於齊澤克的「互卸性」概念，此章將冒昧增補波爾特及古魯森所提出的新媒體理論：兩位學者提出的「再媒介化」（remediation）的雙重邏輯─即「去媒介性」（immediacy）與「超媒介性」（hypermediacy）─構成新媒體使用者的二重主體性，即「互動性」（interactivity）與「互卸性」（interpassivity）。將波爾特及古魯森的理論與新媒體使用者的主體性聯想在一起是為了理解新媒體作為傳播資本主義的機器如何將使用者召喚（interpellate）為互動�互卸主體。在此章之第一節，我以網路遊戲中，外掛程式盛行的現象為例子，藉以討論再媒介化的雙重邏輯與媒體使用者的主體性之間的關係。第二節中，有鑒於互動性與互卸性以及再媒介化之間的關係，我探討玩家在電玩遊戲《史丹利的寓言》中的主體位置。 總結來說，雖然此篇論文看似悲觀，但是事實上反抗還是可以藉由新媒體來發揮效用。正如同傅柯所說：「哪裡有權力，哪裡就有反抗。」同理可推，新媒體恰巧也是反抗的場所。有鑒於傅柯深刻的見解，反抗可作為第一章與第二章的根本理念，並將這兩篇章節編織成一體。這可由消費者對谷歌眼鏡廣告的評論展現出來，部分評論嘗試解構看似光鮮亮麗的谷歌眼鏡廣告，並揭露此產品的隱私與監控的議題。除此之外，透過參與電玩《史丹利的寓言》，玩家得到一種啟發，使其質疑並反抗原先被視為理所當然的電玩常規。

關鍵字

新媒體 ； 生命政治 ； 監控 ； 互卸性 ； 美國國家安全局 ； 稜鏡計畫 ； 谷歌眼鏡 ； 再媒介化 ； 去媒介性 ； 超媒介性 ； 《史丹利的寓言》

並列摘要

Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis intends to explore the impact of new media upon people’s daily lives, particularly focusing on how new media change people’s conception of privacy and surveillance, as well as how the emerging technologies reformulate the user’s subjectivity within the digital realm. As for the methodology of the thesis, discourse analysis is employed to analyze the social milieu and change within it. The thesis firstly investigates the issue of privacy and surveillance, and then turns to explore new media user’s subjectivity.

In Chapter One, following Michel Foucault’s notion of “biopolitics,” I attempt to investigate how the changes in contemporary surveillance – where the body of the human species, or life manifesting itself in all its diversity (such as its biometric features, its mechanisms, including daily activity, movement, communicating, Web surfing, etc.) has become the target of political intervention – are naturalized in people’s daily engagement with new media. To unpack the problem, in the first section of this chapter, I would first define what new media signify, and then relate the implications to the changes of contemporary surveillance, contributed by new media, particularly situated within the context of Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the National Security Agency (NSA)’s mass surveillance practice. In the second section of this chapter, regarding Google Glass as a kind of new media, I would conduct a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of consumers’ responses to two Google Glass commercials on YouTube, in order to show how, through what kind of discursive practice, Google Glass is constructed as a cutting-edge wearable technology, in such a way as to conceal the issues of privacy and surveillance that underlie the product.

In Chapter Two, I explore how new media reformulate the user’s subjectivity. Based upon Slavoj Žižek’s notion of “interpassivity,” this chapter would venture to add that what follows from Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin’s new media theory of remediation, constituted by the double logic of “immediacy” and “hypermediacy,” is a twofold aspect of the new media user’s subjectivity, that is, interactivity and interpassivity. To associate Bolter and Grusin’s theory with the new media user’s subjectivity is to try to understand how new media as the apparatuses of communicative capitalism interpellate the user as the interactive/interpassive subject. In the first section of this chapter, in order to evince that the two pairs of categories (i.e. “immediacy vs. hypermediacy” and “interactivity vs. interpassivity”) are pertinent to each other, I draw on contemporary examples, ranging from the prevalence of players’ cheating through bot abuses in MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) to the phenomenon of selfie tourism. In the second section of this chapter, in terms of the two pairs of categories, evinced above, I examine the player’s subject position in The Stanley Parable, a first-person, narrative-driven video game, which offers not so much an interactive scenario as an interpassive experience, in the sense that the game itself promises to imbue the player with empowerment and freedom, associated with interactivity, but, in its very attempt to offer such prospect, the game takes it away from the player and mocks their inability to do anything.

To sum up, although it may appear that the thesis shows a pessimistic view about new media usage, for new media are prone to be used as means of regulating and controlling the population, or as products that obscure the works of surveillance involved in everyday participation in the digital realm, still resistance is viable through new media. Just like how Foucault remarks on the inseparable relationship between power and resistance, as he goes, “Where there is power, there is resistance,” so too do new media happen to be venues for resistance. In view of Foucault’s insight, resistance can be regarded as the underlying logic that weaves Chapter One and Two together. This can be demonstrated by consumers’ comments that attempt to deconstruct Google Glass’s glossy advertisement so as to reveal the issues of privacy and surveillance involved in the product. Furthermore, by engaging in The Stanley Parable, the player is enlightened to question and resist gaming practices that were once taken for granted.

並列關鍵字

new media ； biopolitics ； surveillance ； interpassivity ； the NSA ； PRISM ； Google Glass ； remediation ； immediacy ； hypermediacy ； The Stanley Parable

參考文獻

Light, Daniel, and Elizabeth Pierson. “Increasing Student Engagement in Math: The Use of Khan Academy in Chilean Classrooms.” International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology 10.2 (2014): 103-119. Web.

Snowden, Edward. “NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I don’t’ want to live in a society that does these sort of thing’.” By Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras. Guardian. Guardian, 9 June 2013. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.

Žižek, Slavoj. How to Read Lacan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. Print.

Lacan, Jacques. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, 1959-1960. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992. Print.

Works Cited