ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the use of material from an empirical study about privacy in informational capitalism, therefore particular focus will be on methodological considerations. The presented empirical research was conducted within the research project '"Social Networking Sites in the Surveillance Society" that was funded by the Austrian Science Fund. The chapter explains the basic assumptions of critical research that it should look for problematic oppression and ideology, but also potential emancipation. It provides information about the general capitalist qualities in the context of surveillance, privacy, and social media. The research interest aims at leaving behind problems that come along with the commodification of privacy and seeks to establish fulfilled privacy and individual rights without a connection to capitalist private property by applying several critiques. The image of the applied critical methodology derives from a critique of positivism. The category 'privacy' has been used within research in a non-reflective manner, based on classical liberal mainstream theory.
