SSN Book Prize

The Surveillance Studies Network and Surveillance & Society award an annual book prize for an outstanding monograph on surveillance published in the prior calendar year. The award includes a small monetary honorarium.

The SSN Book Award Committee, made up of members of the SSN Network and Editorial Board, reviews published and nominated books and selects the award winners.

Calls for nominations will be posted accordingly.

2024 nominations are open!

Nomination instructions for the 2024 SSN Book Award:

Using the subject heading “SSN Book Prize 2024,” please email the committee chair, Ciara Bracken-Roche (ciara[dot]brackenroche[at]mu[dot]ie) to nominate a book. Please include the title of the book, year of publication, author, publishing house, and a paragraph of no more than 250 words detailing specifics about why this book would be suitable for the award.

Books that are eligible must be:

Primarily concerned with surveillance
Published in the prior calendar year
Monographs, not edited collections
Original works in English (or newly translated into English)

Past Winners

2023

Brian Hochman, The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States. Harvard University Press, 2022.

Honourable mentions:

Mary F. E. Eberling, Afterlives of Data: Life and Debt Under Capitalist Surveillance. University of California Press, 2022.

Torin Monahan, Crisis Vision: Race and the Cultural Production of Surveillance. Duke University Press, 2022.

[2023 award announcement]

2022

Bryce Clayton Newell, Police Visibility: Privacy, Surveillance, and the False Promise of Body-Worn Cameras. University of California Press, 2021.

Honourable mentions:

Clare Birchall, Radical Secrecy: The Ends of Transparency in Datafied America. University of Minnesota Press, 2021.

Emma Bedor-Hiland, Therapy Tech: The Digital Transformation of Mental Healthcare. University of Minnesota Press, 2021.

[2022 award announcement]

2021

Sarah Brayne, Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing. Oxford University Press, 2020.

[2021 award announcement]

2020

Ronak K. Kapadia, Insurgent Aesthetics. Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War. Duke University Press, 2019.

Honourable mention:

Brendan McQuade, Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision. University of California Press, 2019.

[2020 award announcement]

2019

Andrew Crosby and Jeffrey Monaghan, Policing Indigenous Movements: Dissent and the Security State. Fernwood Publishing, 2018.

[2019 award announcement]

2018

Josh Lauer, Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and Financial Identity in America. Columbia University Press, 2017.

[2018 award announcement]

2017

J. Macgregor Wise, Surveillance and Film. Bloomsbury, 2016.

[2017 award announcement]

SSN Book Prize

Books that are eligible must be:

Primarily concerned with surveillance

Published in the prior calendar year

Monographs, not edited collections

Original works in English (or newly translated into English)

Past Winners

2023

Brian Hochman, The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States. Harvard University Press, 2022.

Honourable mentions:

Mary F. E. Eberling, Afterlives of Data: Life and Debt Under Capitalist Surveillance. University of California Press, 2022.

Torin Monahan, Crisis Vision: Race and the Cultural Production of Surveillance. Duke University Press, 2022.

2022

Bryce Clayton Newell, Police Visibility: Privacy, Surveillance, and the False Promise of Body-Worn Cameras. University of California Press, 2021.

Honourable mentions:

2021

Sarah Brayne, Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing. Oxford University Press, 2020.

2020

Ronak K. Kapadia, Insurgent Aesthetics. Security and the Queer Life of the Forever War. Duke University Press, 2019.

Brendan McQuade, Pacifying the Homeland: Intelligence Fusion and Mass Supervision. University of California Press, 2019.

2019

Andrew Crosby and Jeffrey Monaghan, Policing Indigenous Movements: Dissent and the Security State. Fernwood Publishing, 2018.

2018

Josh Lauer, Creditworthy: A History of Consumer Surveillance and Financial Identity in America. Columbia University Press, 2017.

2017

J. Macgregor Wise, Surveillance and Film. Bloomsbury, 2016.

2016

Simone Browne, Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness. Duke University Press, 2015.

2015

Jointly awarded to two books:

William G. Staples, Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2014.

Michael McCahill and Rachel L. Finn, Surveillance, Capital and Resistance: Theorizing the Surveillance Subject. Routledge, 2014.

2014

Oliver Leistert, From Protest to Surveillance: The Political Rationality of Mobile Media. Peter Lang, 2013.

2013

Daniel Trottier, Social Media as Surveillance. Ashgate, 2012.

2012

Susan Landau, Surveillance or Security? The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies. MIT Press, 2011.

2011

Torin Monahan, Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity. Rutgers University Press, 2010.

Surveillance Studies Network