Consumer-Controlled Surveillance Culture

Refers to how any event can now be documented through a multitude of digital recording devices on the internet.

Example

The trend is mentioned in this blog commentary at http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3498436

Case: the London Underground bombings

"The CGM space shot off like a rocket within seconds of the bombings, aided in large measure by handheld devices (phones, digital cameras, PDAs) that made it easy to send photos and other content directly to the Web. The incident spurred a spike in blogs featuring video, especially home videos. All this increased the effect, awareness, word of mouth, and virality. Just as camera phones make it possible for still photos to be shot and distributed anywhere by nearly anyone, vlogs (define) do the same for film and footage. Hundreds of photos litter photo-sharing sites such as Flickr.

Bloggers went to work immediately. Powerful, action-oriented blog postings emerged almost instantaneously on their own blogs or were offered to major news outlets. Blog services now make it easier to blog from your phone. This increases the "surveillance net" or "stringer pool." Unlike text, photos are tough to dispute, especially when they're posted so quickly, there's no conceivable way to doctor them."