iPhone Surveillance

For my post, I used the iPhone X commercial and edited it to highlight the concept of surveillance that we have been covering in class. I used clips from three different Ted talks; “How data brokers sold my identity “by Madhumita Murgia, “How the US government spies on people who protest – including you” by Jennifer Granick, and “Your smartphone is a civil rights issue” by Christopher Soghoian. I used these clips in conjunction with a quote from the “Surveillance” essay by Kelly Gates. Using Audacity, for the first two audio clips I pitched down the original iPhone audio as well as bringing down the volume. The third clip which highlights how poorer communities are disproportionately affected by surveillance concerns as mediated through smartphones is placed at the end of the commercial as a statement meant to elicit critical thought about the issue. The last few seconds of the iPhone commercial has a sliding pitch scale effect because I wanted to frame the last statement in such a way that kind of caused discomfort. Putting all of these elements in concert with each other allowed me to highlight several different aspects of surveillance.