ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates empirically how objectivated human activity affects not only supervisory circuitry practicalities but also phenomenology of closed-circuit television (CCTV) operation itself. The contention here is that in order to understand adequately the lived experiences of CCTV operators and daily operationalisations of supervision, it is essential to analyse the broader socio-historical contexts from which both have sprung. The powers and actions of the closed-circuit television working group (CCTVWG) crafted a socio-material and networked contrivance for governing perceptual impressions and behavioural expressions within the new urbanism. A further strain on the camera operators was their subordinate position in a convoluted communication structure and lack of jurisdictional command over police and security units dispersed across the city. Structures are sedimented as much from actor activity as from actor inactivity. In the case of CCTVWG, a lack of managerial foresight in the consultation period generated all manner of subsequent problems, quandaries that cumulatively constrain the operating capacity of the current Newborough camera network.
