Predicting, securing and shaping the future: Mechanisms of governance in online social environments

In online environments, the issues of governance, privacy and security are in a state of emergence, with consensus on institutional frameworks and practices not yet settled. The dynamic relations between governments, corporations and citizens are being renegotiated through the algorithmic formations of data mining and through contract law in the form of End User Licence Agreements. To analyse how the current practices and discourses associated with the socio-technical assemblages of online social worlds work within the broader political economy this article considers discourses associated with risk and security (Dean 2010), practices and discourses associated with algorithms (Gillespie forthcoming 2014) and the new shape of ‘predictive surveillance’ in the form of panspectralism (Palmås 2011). The emerging patterns of governance through contractual law and algorithms are enabling the discursive construction of a differently balanced set of relations between citizens, governments and corporations. The overlapping interests of these stakeholders are considered, and the strong alliances between corporations and the security arms of governments are identified.