Authoritarian governments are rapidly adopting new technologies like facial recognition, internet monitoring tools and AI to surveil and control its citizenry. Many of these same digital tools also ar...
Vian Bakir is Professor in Political Communication and Journalism at Bangor University, Wales, UK. Her research investigates the security state and public accountability; issues of trust and deception in journalism; and media agenda-building struggles.
Her recent public impact work in journalism includes numerous submissions to the UK Parliament’s Fake News Inquiry (2017-18); and working with the UK’s National Union of Journalists (with Paul Lashmar) to prepare guidance for journalists seeking to avoid surveillance by the security state.
Her research monographs include Intelligence Elites and Public Accountability: Relationships of Influence with Civil Society (London: Routledge, 2018), Torture, Intelligence and Sousveillance in the War on Terror: Agenda–Building Struggles (2013) and Sousveillance, Media and Strategic Political Communication: Iraq, USA, UK (New York: Continuum, 2010).
She has been guest editor of Big Data & Society Special Issue on Veillance and Transparency: A Critical Examination of Mutual Watching in the Post-Snowden, Big Data Era (2017) and International Journal of Press/Politics Special Issue on News, Agenda-Building & Intelligence Agencies: Understanding Manipulation and Methodologies (2015).
National security is one of the most important and difficult beats in journalism. Accurate reporting of this burgeoning public and private sector industry has become more significant in recent years. ...