Harmoniously Denied: COVID-19 and the Latent Effects of Censorship

Abstract

While few would doubt that censorship is a form of surveillance, the practice and theory of censorship does not hold as prominent a place within surveillance studies as one might think. In this paper, we demonstrate the constitutive effects of censorship that seep into the collective mentality and, in Foucauldian terms, “conducts the conduct.” We examine the wider socio-political impact of China’s censorship of COVID-19. We argue that censorship is a force “at large.” By this we refer to the pervasive uptake of censorship practices at different levels and how censorship manifests itself as a form of power unchained, making it difficult, if not impossible, to track and contain its impact, even for the authorities. We argue that censorship surveils the expressed and, by extension, regulates the not-yet-expressed. It surveils what can be perceived and, by extension, pre-conditions the not-yet-conceived. We highlight the domestic impact of how China’s censorship regime bends its population into acquiescing to a harmonious denial of its collective prospects and how it curtails the global response.