Ruckenstein & Granroth 2020 – Algorithms, advertising and the intimacy of surveillance¶

In brief

The article develops the notion of ‘the intimacy of surveillance’ to describe corporate marketing and ‘dataveillance’ based on consumers' digital traces (p. 12) [U]. Based on 25 interviews in Helsinki, the authors show that consumers want contradictory things: they oppose creepy advertising based on tracking, yet expect more relevant real-time analysis and predictions (pp. 12, 16, 21) [U]. Emotional reactions to targeted ads fall into three areas: fear, irritation and pleasure (p. 17) [U]. The authors argue that people trying to understand algorithms alone with their devices undermines public culture, and call for collective responses (pp. 12, 22) [U].

Research question and main claim¶

The article examines how the market ‘sees’ the consumer, and how consumers react to that seeing, through emotional responses to targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram (pp. 12–13) [U].
Main claim: the tension between disturbing and pleasurable aspects of corporate surveillance explains how surveillance felt as disturbing can co-exist with pleasure at being ‘seen’ by the market (p. 12) [U].
The ‘affect of relevance’ can override concerns about privacy and manipulation (p. 21) [U].
Everyday distress and paranoia among social media users indicate ‘failed social arrangements in need of urgent repair’ (pp. 12, 22) [U].

Theoretical perspective¶

Surveillance studies on marketing as surveillance (Pridmore and Lyon) and ‘dataveillance’ (Raley, van Dijck) (p. 13) [U].
Fourcade and Healy's ‘Seeing like a market’ on the market as a classifier (pp. 12–13, 15) [U].
Bucher's ‘algorithmic imaginary’ and Kennedy and Hill on emotions as an epistemic resource (pp. 16–17) [U].
Moore on concept-metaphors (p. 14) [U].
Zwick and Bradshaw on post-marketing and biopolitical marketing (p. 16) [U].

Empirical material and context¶

25 semi-structured interviews in Helsinki, Finland, June–August 2017, with 14 women and 11 men aged 19–56, recruited through social media and snowball sampling (p. 16) [U].
Part of a research project on everyday understandings of algorithms (p. 13) [U].
Finland's history of gender equality politics is used to explain why participants criticised gender-stereotyped ads (p. 19) [U].

Method¶

Qualitative interviews; narrated emotional reactions used as a methodological entry point and epistemic resource (pp. 16–17) [U].
Targeted ads emerged as a theme during analysis, not as a planned focus (p. 17) [U].

Key concepts¶

Concept	How the source defines or uses it	Page	U/T
intimacy of surveillance	A spatial, non-individualistic concept-metaphor for the emotional territory of corporate surveillance	13–14	U
dataveillance	Surveillance through social media and online technologies by means of tracking	13	U
concept-metaphor	A partial, perspectival framing device defined in practice and context	14	U
fear / irritation / pleasure	Three emotional realms in reactions to targeted ads	17–18	U
affect of relevance	(Zwick) The pleasure of being seen by the market, which overrides privacy concerns	21	U
post-marketing	Marketing so embedded in everyday life that it becomes indistinguishable from it	16, 21–22	U

How privacy and private data are understood¶

Privacy appears as something violated when corporate surveillance crosses boundaries of personal autonomy (pp. 13, 15, 17) [U].
The most pervasive fear is uncertainty about what and how much information is collected and what it is used for (p. 18) [U].
Some participants said they had nothing to hide (p. 18) [U].
People have few options not to participate as data-generating subjects (p. 13) [U]. Facebook keeps shadow profiles of people who have never signed up (p. 21) [U].
Consumers want contradictory things: less tracking and more relevant prediction (pp. 12, 21) [U].
Personal data collection has become a naturalised part of the digital infrastructure (p. 14) [U].

Arguments and findings¶

Targeted ads are one of the main ways people get first-hand knowledge of how algorithms work (p. 17) [U].
Fear arises when ads mimic past behaviour, giving a sense of being followed (pp. 18–19) [U].
Irritation arises when ads use crude age–gender categories and stereotypes, or lag behind (pp. 19–20) [U].
Pleasure arises when ads feel timely and personalised (p. 20) [U].
Even if analytics do not identify individuals but classify them, the ads feel personally invasive (p. 19) [U].
Successful targeting is gradually preparing people for more intimate surveillance (p. 22) [U].

Limitations the source itself mentions¶

As typical of qualitative research, the findings are limited to what the empirical material shows (p. 17) [U].
Pleasurable aspects were discussed much less than negative ones, possibly because people take them for granted (p. 18) [U].
Post-marketing is a vision unlikely to materialise fully (p. 22) [U].

What the source does not cover¶

The state's use of data; the focus is corporate marketing [T].
Norway specifically, although Finland is a Nordic neighbour [T].
Legal regulation [T].

Possible relevance for the thesis¶

One of the few Nordic studies in the list, showing how Finnish users experience data collection [T].
The finding that people are alone with their devices trying to understand algorithms, and that this undermines public culture (p. 22), may contrast with documents that place responsibility on individual citizens [T].
The ambivalence between wanting less surveillance and more relevance can be compared with the documents' assumptions about what citizens want [T].

Connections to other sources¶

Fourcade 2017 – Ruckenstein & Granroth cite Fourcade and Healy 2017 (Seeing like a market), not The fly and the cookie (pp. 12, 23) [U]. The two Fourcade texts are thematically close [T].
Marres 2025 – thematic: everyday experience of invisible algorithmic infrastructure [T].
Cloos et al. 2019 – thematic: ambivalence in people's attitudes to privacy [T].
Solove 2011 – thematic: participants used the nothing-to-hide argument (p. 18) [T].

Key quotes¶

“we demonstrate how consumers want contradictory things: they oppose intrusive and creepy advertising based on tracking their activities, yet expect more relevant real-time analysis and probabilistic predictions” (p. 12)

“The invisibility indicates that the digital infrastructure, of which personal data collection is an integral part, has become naturalized.” (p. 14)

“Importantly, the affect of relevance overrides concerns about privacy and marketing manipulation; it is at the heart of the new intimacy of surveillance.” (p. 21)

“The everyday distress and paranoia to which users of social media are exposed are indicators of failed social arrangements in need of urgent repair.” (p. 22)

Open questions for Rebekka¶

Is the Nordic setting (Finland) relevant for how you read Norwegian documents?
Do Norwegian documents assume that citizens can understand algorithms on their own, or do they suggest collective responses?
Is the ambivalence the article describes visible in how the documents talk about citizens' attitudes to data?
Is corporate marketing within the scope of your thesis, or mainly background?