Surveilling the Surveillers: The Art and Craft of Exposure on Social Media

• In Event: Russian Dissent in Social Media: Protest against the Totalitarian State

Abstract

This paper will examine the surveillance techniques and visual rhetoric of exposure used by oppositional investigative organizations such as the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Bellingcat, and Mediazona. These techniques concretize and authenticate maleficence by making it visible and therefore more compellingly real to viewers. My focus will be on how the opposition uses diverse forms of visual media from various sources (drone photography, surveillance footage, interior reconstructions, Instagram posts) integrated with powerful narrative to usurp the state’s power of surveillance and give the broader public vivid access to the Putin regime’s crimes.

Author

• Lynn E. Patyk, Dartmouth College