The origin of my idea was Channel 4's T.V. series reality documentary 'The Hunted' which followed both voluntary fugitives and Britain's finest 'Dci's' and CCTV operators. From both perspectives the audience can see the power and control the Government and Police have over us ( the public) and the challenge of freedom in a world heavily dominated by technology. The ease of capturing mre than half if the fugitives the Police gad and the degree of authority and the depth of how much they can access gave me a fresh perspective on how our country is governed and watched. I felt that we had little freedom at all and began to research the laws of CCTV and how frequent their presence is. The knowledge I had acquired made me want to inform others by weighing up the benefits and negatives. Their is a lot of speculation about making sacrifices of our human right of privacy to catch terrorists therefore I felt it was relevant. A huge factor in the the programme which I forgot is that they are treating them like real fugitives, however all the information about their lives was so easily accessed and monitored 24/7. Writing the article allows me to communicate my opinion and the positive and negative effect of Britain owning 40% of the worlds surveillance.
Another inspiration for my article was the musical preference I have in. 90's hip hop and modern/underground grime has a frequent mention of criminal injustice and Police presence. For example the infamous song from the 90's N.W.A- fuck the police demonstrates the message of derogatives towards the law perfectly. With this cocktail of anger towards the Police and the London riots in my mind after an exercise we had done in lesson a strong opinion for both sides of the argument had evolved and inspired me to write the article.
More influences come from the book ' An evil cradling' by Brian Keenan. The autobiography about being held captive and the suffocation of no freedom because of a greater presence ( this was compatible with all of my other inspirations). In a sense I felt his story was a metaphor for how the people of the United Kingdom had been living in some cases. He lives with the presence of kidnappers but what all of us live with is presence of CCTV. There was no difference between his story and our lives in the sense he was monitored all day every day as are we.
The news and on-line articles have also been an inspiration in the creation of the article, particularly footage and arrests made involved with the London riots and the NSA and Snowden case. The London riots were heavily covered majority of the footage from CCTV which opened my eye and then when I read an article in the guardian about how Snowden exposed the American government of how they keep track everything we do online- I felt obliged to inform others as I informed myself. A pattern had emerged and it became apparent that I enjoyed reading about personal experience. When I read 'Touching the void' this yet again enforced the idea about writing about being in captivity in the modern day. Using my writers journal I enjoyed writing my daily experiences, this also influenced my decision to write an article.
In an interview with Tupac he spoke about how he is making more money but the Police and Government gave him more law suits so he had to pay out more money to the courts ' They got this cool way to keep a brother broke, I got 7 law suits against me for nothing. But I still gotta pay the lawyers still gotta pay everybody to go court, still gotta pay for bodyguards- I gotta have one, still gotta pay. They give me more cheques but they also give me more bills' I wanted to touch the element of Government control controversially he was speaking about. Initially I had wrote a about the London riots in a biographical form in the early stages but was influenced by my wider reading. The genre- protest writing had appealed to me from the early stages and from the books I was reading which were all based upon extreme personal experience and lives what are extraordinary.
Brian Keenan specifically impacted my choice of form specifically, I was planning to do a biography of a man in the London riots about him getting caught, but there was no element of captivity in there which I was passionate about involving. When reading ' An evil craddling' it occured to me that I would prefer to make an article about the lack of privacy or something around that area. When I remembered watching 'The hunted' and seeing CCTV cameras watching me everyday not just on the streets but also in my school. The problem was personal to me and everyone else in this country, the same genre I liked to read I was going to articulate in an Article form about CCTV - the idea was born. My writing in the Article is more factual, opinionated and thought provoking. Compared to the authors I had read they were able to touch an emotion of anger and enlightenment. I wasn't in any extreme predicament but I wanted to make effect others the same way they had given me a platform to think and obsess.
The biggest difference between my drafts have been having a different angle or adding more information and swapping it with current information I had in my article. For example I thought it would be right to include the London riots as it was a huge event and success for CCTV and police. However my argument was balanced therefore I had to go and research some more and include an opposing case which was against CCTV. Keeping the balance each time took a lot of time and adjustment with each draft. Also the alteration of view points between drafts had an impact on my piece. At the start I was very pro CCTV because I didn't have ,many points against it but as I researched and kept writing I found a flair to balance it. I also used a wider range of vocabulary and punctuation after receiving feedback from my teacher ' basic technical control but not consistent' therefore I had to go back over my work and tweak/include lexis, grammar and punctuation.
I emailed my Article to a university student studying Journalism and a university student studying International relations. From the feedback from both I changed parts of my article, for example the counter argument against CCTV is much stronger to balance my argument out. The Journalism student told me to hook the reader in and that's what I tried to incorporate in my first paragraph. The International relations student told me to speak evenly about the governments abuse of power as it has its positives and negatives. The decision to include some more case studies and facts I feel was important as it will make the reader think about the realism of the article. Furthermore the teachers gave me advice to focus more on the technical elements of CCTV for example the cost and businesses who use it and why. This enabled me to to expand further on my article and improve it with more information.
