The Good Drone

Reviewed by: The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance by Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, and: Unmanning: How Humans, Machines and Media Perform Drone Warfare by Katherine Chandler Tim Schultz (bio) The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance By Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. Pp. 324. Unmanning: How Humans, Machines and Media Perform Drone Warfare By Katherine Chandler. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020. Pp. 190. The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance By Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020. Pp. 324. Unmanning: How Humans, Machines and Media Perform Drone Warfare By Katherine Chandler. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020. Pp. 190. The Good Drone and Unmanning make an intriguing juxtaposition. One examines the peaceful but norm-disrupting use of small drones, whereas the other dismantles the facade that military drones are separate from human action. Both illuminate the interrelationship between technology, politics, culture, and conflict as they draw from familiar concepts in science and technology studies. Together, their interdisciplinary approaches offer new insights relevant to scholars concerned with social movements, media studies, national security, and technological innovation in general. The Good Drone fills a gap in the literature concerning social movements and media. As drones shrink in size and cost, they enable "new ways of seeing, which in turn lead to new ways of showing." Basically, Choi-Fitzpatrick argues, cheap drones hack airspace. The airspace above a mass demonstration is no longer just the province of states or corporate elites and their expensive surveillance platforms. Instead, citizens can deploy drone-operated cameras to anonymously document events on the ground and shape the narrative. Interestingly, The Good Drone critiques the dominant but narrow view by human rights groups of drones as killer robots, a narrative that overlooks their efficacy as an emerging means of social action. Choi-Fitzpatrick begins with the concepts of emergence and disruption. When technology can do something previous tools did not, it is emergent. When its actions provoke stakeholder disapproval, it is disruptive. He cites various examples of simultaneously emergent and disruptive use, including drones monitoring police or revealing regime atrocities in Aleppo. He also portrays technologies of aerial surveillance from kites and balloons to drones and satellites as geospatial affordances, or tools that expand the sphere of access. By enabling individuals and social movements to usurp command of the air, drones expand and perhaps disrupt the realm of political action. A key aspect of The Good Drone, which also features in Unmanning, is the role of the camera. In a chapter devoted to the camera's politics, Choi-Fitzpatrick [End Page 927] observes that "photographs are celebrated" but "cameras are ignored" in the literature of humanitarianism and social movements. This brings needed attention to how changes in the means of obtaining images have political importance, particularly as those means become more mobile and less subject to control by the opposition. Similarly, in Unmanning, Chandler discusses how the United States deployed camera platforms during the Cold War as a means of shaping events. In both books, the technology of obtaining images—not just the images themselves—acquires political importance. Choi-Fitzpatrick also notes that drones create new politics through more than just recording images. They provide tools for individuals or groups of citizen actors to impose costs on elites. One example is using drones to "decolonize" areas in the built environment by making them accessible to graffiti enthusiasts. Although graffiti may be a notable form of political dissent, the author extols drone-enabled graffiti as "unconventional public art" and exalts those who go where no artist-protestor has gone before to deface public and private property. This idea, along with other subjective claims such as that the police would still "kill with impunity" even if under drone surveillance, undermines Choi-Fitzpatrick's objectivity. Nevertheless, he artfully illustrates how the use of drones is limited chiefly by the imagination of law-abiding citizens and malefactors alike. This suggests a need to further analyze how drones provide new means of influence to those with not-so-good intentions, such as extremist organizations across the political spectrum. Well-written and accessible to diverse readers, The Good Drone possesses many strengths. In addition to

Drone · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Social media · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life