The Illusion of Choice: How the Visual Hand of the Market Manufactures Consent for a Privatized Prison Telecommunications Sector in the United States

This presentation reviews the emergence of the prison telecom sector and asks "Why do these companies advertise?" The presenters make sense of the advertisements in this "captive audience" through the use of Goffman's notion of commercial realism. Data include web-hosted advertisements (N = 871; 711 images, 87 commercials, and 73 text entries) from 17 companies (hosting 30 websites total). Data were collected between March-September of 2023. The analytical strategy is based on visual criminology, and resulted in a 200-item codebook developed to capture a wide roster of carceral displays and other stylistic elements. Data were analyzed using MAXQDA 24 software and employed a two-stage data audit process. The authors go on to discuss the rendering of subordination axises in these advertisements, define the notion of operational connectedness, and demonstrated the significance of editing in advertisements. Their boldest conclusions include the notion that Commercial Realism remakes the experience of incarceration, not just by selling solutions, but by informing carceral relations, and this observation helps lend credence to the idea that visual criminology offers a unique window into the prison-industrial complex.

Presented by Lydia Bundick at Penn State Altoona’s Integrated Social Science Research Lab (ISSRL)

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Work Title The Illusion of Choice: How the Visual Hand of the Market Manufactures Consent for a Privatized Prison Telecommunications Sector in the United States
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Open Access
Creators
  1. Lydia Bundick
  2. Alexander Kinney
  3. Nathan Kruis
  4. Nicholas J. Rowland
License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives)
Work Type Presentation
Publication Date 2024
DOI doi:10.26207/9d2e-s887
Deposited October 28, 2024

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  • Updated Description, Publication Date Show Changes
    Description
    • This presentation reviews the emergence of the prison telecom sector and asks "Why do these companies advertise?" The presenters make sense of the advertisements in this "captive audience" through the use of Goffman's notion of commercial realism. Data include web-hosted advertisements (N = 871; 711 images, 87 commercials, and 73 text entries) from 17 companies (hosting 30 websites total). Data were collected between March-September of 2023. The analytical strategy is based on visual criminology, and resulted in a 200-item codebook developed to capture a wide roster of carceral displays and other stylistic elements. Data were analyzed using MAXQDA 24 software and employed a two-stage data audit process. The authors go on to discuss the rendering of subordination axises in these advertisements, define the notion of operational connectedness, and demonstrated the significance of editing in advertisements. Their boldest conclusions include the notion that Commercial Realism remakes the experience of incarceration, not just by selling solutions, but by informing carceral relations, and this observation helps lend credence to the idea that visual criminology offers a unique window into the prison-industrial complex.
    Publication Date
    • 2024
  • Added Creator Lydia Bundick
  • Added Creator Alexander Kinney
  • Added Creator Nathan Kruis
  • Added Creator NICHOLAS JAMES ROWLAND
  • Added Bundick Presentation 2024 (PSU 10_28).pdf
  • Updated License Show Changes
    License
    • https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
  • Published
  • Updated
  • Updated Description Show Changes
    Description
    • This presentation reviews the emergence of the prison telecom sector and asks "Why do these companies advertise?" The presenters make sense of the advertisements in this "captive audience" through the use of Goffman's notion of commercial realism. Data include web-hosted advertisements (N = 871; 711 images, 87 commercials, and 73 text entries) from 17 companies (hosting 30 websites total). Data were collected between March-September of 2023. The analytical strategy is based on visual criminology, and resulted in a 200-item codebook developed to capture a wide roster of carceral displays and other stylistic elements. Data were analyzed using MAXQDA 24 software and employed a two-stage data audit process. The authors go on to discuss the rendering of subordination axises in these advertisements, define the notion of operational connectedness, and demonstrated the significance of editing in advertisements. Their boldest conclusions include the notion that Commercial Realism remakes the experience of incarceration, not just by selling solutions, but by informing carceral relations, and this observation helps lend credence to the idea that visual criminology offers a unique window into the prison-industrial complex.
    • This presentation reviews the emergence of the prison telecom sector and asks "Why do these companies advertise?" The presenters make sense of the advertisements in this "captive audience" through the use of Goffman's notion of commercial realism. Data include web-hosted advertisements (N = 871; 711 images, 87 commercials, and 73 text entries) from 17 companies (hosting 30 websites total). Data were collected between March-September of 2023. The analytical strategy is based on visual criminology, and resulted in a 200-item codebook developed to capture a wide roster of carceral displays and other stylistic elements. Data were analyzed using MAXQDA 24 software and employed a two-stage data audit process. The authors go on to discuss the rendering of subordination axises in these advertisements, define the notion of operational connectedness, and demonstrated the significance of editing in advertisements. Their boldest conclusions include the notion that Commercial Realism remakes the experience of incarceration, not just by selling solutions, but by informing carceral relations, and this observation helps lend credence to the idea that visual criminology offers a unique window into the prison-industrial complex.
    • Presented by Lydia Bundick at Penn State Altoona’s Integrated Social Science Research Lab (ISSRL)
  • Renamed Creator Nicholas J. Rowland Show Changes
    • NICHOLAS JAMES ROWLAND
    • Nicholas J. Rowland