COVID-19 Pandemic With a Focus on Body: Digitalization, Surveillance, and Self-Tracking

Year 2023, Issue: 14, 155 - 177, 30.06.2023

Hilal Uludağ , Serap Gün

https://doi.org/10.55609/yenimedya.1215523

Cited By: 1

Abstract

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the human body has assumed a major role in the disease-health domain, particularly in relation to the physical impacts of the virus. Yet, the body is also at the core of the pandemic’s effects on society, interactions, politics, power mechanisms, security, and technology. This study aims to assess the body as a social entity during the pandemic process in the context of digitalization, surveillance and self-tracking, analyzes the effects of the rules and restrictions implemented within the purview of pandemic measures, elevated use of digital technology, datafication, measurement and quantification on the body, in light of the literature, applications and approaches developed in both Turkey and worldwide. The research demonstrated that the use of digital technologies for monitoring, documenting, and controlling has grown in the fight against the pandemic. This condition enables the development of quick and efficient solutions. In addition, the pandemic has increased the use of digital tools and applications as a means of sustaining the interrupted everyday life; social relations and behaviors have become digitally mediated to a considerable extent. While individuals have gravitated to self-tracking and quantification in response to the need for self-control, pandemic measures that build their legitimacy via health have been accompanied by the risks of surveillance, monitoring, control, and datafication of the body. On the one hand, the research has prompted the COVID-19 process to be called into doubt by thoroughly examining the contributions of digitalization throughout the pandemic, and datafication’s potential to become routine and ongoing after the pandemic, which might breach data privacy on the other end.

Keywords

COVID-19 Pandemic, Body, Digitalization, Surveillance, Self-Tracking

Beden Odağında COVID-19 Salgını: Dijitalleşme, Gözetim ve Öz-takip

Abstract

COVID-19 salgınıyla beden, özellikle virüsün fiziksel etkileri doğrultusunda, hastalık-sağlık zemininde merkezi bir unsur olmuştur. Ancak beden, salgınla değişen toplumsalın, ilişkilerin, politikanın, iktidar mekanizmalarının, güvenliğin ve teknolojilerin de odağında konumlanmaktadır. Salgın sürecinde toplumsal bir varlık olarak bedeni dijitalleşme, gözetim ve öz-takip (kendi kendini izleme) bağlamında değerlendirmeyi amaçlayan bu çalışma; salgın tedbirleri kapsamında uygulanan kural ve kısıtlamaların, artan dijital teknoloji kullanımının, verileştirmenin, ölçmenin ve nicelleştirmenin bedene olan etkilerini literatür ile dünyada ve Türkiye’de salgın boyunca geliştirilen uygulama ve yaklaşımlar çerçevesinde analiz etmektedir. Çalışma, salgınla mücadelede takip, kayıt altına alma ve kontrol etme amaçlarıyla dijital teknolojilerden faydalanmanın arttığını; bu durumun salgın yönetiminde hızlı ve etkin çözümler üretilebilmesini mümkün kıldığını göstermiştir. Ayrıca salgınla birlikte kesintiye uğrayan gündelik hayatın sürdürülebilmesinin kolaylaştırıcı bir yolu olarak dijital araç ve uygulamaların kullanımı yoğunlaşmış; toplumsal ilişkiler ve eylemler büyük ölçüde dijital aracılı hale gelmiştir. Fakat diğer yandan meşruluğunu sağlık üzerinden kuran salgın tedbirleri, bedenin gözetlenmesi, kontrol edilmesi ve verileştirilmesi risklerini de beraberinde getirmiş; bireyler öz-denetim talebiyle kendi kendilerini izlemeye ve nicelleştirmeye yönelmişlerdir. Bu eksende çalışma, bir uçta dijitalleşmenin salgın sırasındaki katkıları diğer uçta ise verileştirmenin veri mahremiyetini/gizliliğini ihlal edebilecek biçimde salgın sonrasında da sıradanlaşarak süreklileşmesi potansiyeli arasında COVID-19 sürecini sorgulamaya açmıştır.

Keywords

COVID-19 Salgını, Beden, Dijitalleşme, Gözetim, Öz-takip (Kendi Kendini İzleme)

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