Participatory surveillance on social media : A qualitative study of the experiences of Facebook users

The purpose of the thesis is to understand how users of Facebook relate to what they publish and to who has access to it. This is analyzed from the perspective of social networking sites as arenas for participatory surveillance, drawing on the Foucauldian notion of power/knowledge as the basis for surveillance. The empirical material consists of four qualitative interviews with users of Facebook. In summary, the users of the site think of it as a natural part of everyday life within the framework of Facebook as a mediated public. The surveillance is not hierarchical in a traditional sense, based on formal power relations, but still shapes the use of the site