Information Controls: From Surveillance to Social Media and Fake News

Chapter six explores how the control of information has become increasingly important throughout the twentieth and twenty-first century. In particular, modern communication technologies have been foundational in creating new forms of resistance and repression. Despite British involvement in the censorship of anti-regime material, their general encouragement to liberalise the media was met again with Al Khalifa hostility to this. This continued post-Independence, yet despite recent liberalisation, the process of Al Khalifa control has persevered. In addition to exploring the historical development of repressive information practice, this chapter includes elements of a framing analysis and virtual ethnography. Here news coverage and social media content is examined to reveal that protesters and opposition are framed as violent, Iran-sponsored agents working to install a theocracy. This chapter also problematises the liberating potential of technology by arguing how it is continually adapted as a tool of surveillance and control in the recent uprising. It also analyses the growth in importance of surveillance strategies, emphasising the continued importance of transnational linkages in maintaining these repressive processes. Specifically, it assesses how private British and American companies are capitalising on whitewashing human rights abuses.