“Here’s looking at you, kid.’’ From Big Brother to Big Brother: teenagers under surveillance

Sambell, Kay

Abstract

This chapter discusses the ways in which the young adult author, Melvin Burgess, engages with the theme of surveillance. It will focus on his 2006 novel, Sara's Face, arguing that this novel critically explores dicsourses regarding teenage girls' relationships with the media and celebrity culture. In so doing, Burgess moves away from Orwellian narratives which overtly warn children about the invasiveness of surveillance as a means of totalitarian control. Instead, he represents the teenage protagonist, Sara, as capable of manipulating what John Edward McGrath (2004. 2) calls "surveillance space." Here such a space is situated in people's consumption of mass entertainment and popular media texts. Burgess argues that young people are aware of the tensions around media and are capable of understanding and manipulating such spaces themselves. In this assertion, Burgess is offering an innovative approach to articulating the relationship between young people and contemporary media forms.

Citation

Sambell, K. (2012). “Here’s looking at you, kid.’’ From Big Brother to Big Brother: teenagers under surveillance. In C. Ní Bhroin, & P. Kennon (Eds.), What do we tell the children? : critical essays on children's literature (182-195). Cambridge Scholars Publishing

• Publication Date: 2012
• Deposit Date: May 19, 2017
• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Pages: 182-195
• Series Title: Irish Society for Research in Children’s Literature
• Book Title: What do we tell the children? : critical essays on children's literature
• Chapter Number: Part V
• ISBN: 9781443837880
• Keywords: Children's literature, history and criticism.
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/849066