Leading up to Theorizing the Web 2013, we’ll be posting a series of previews of some of the papers we’ll be showcasing at the conference. This is one of those. Stay tuned for more!

Karen Levy – “The Automation of Compliance: Techno-Legal Regulation in the U.S. Trucking Industry”

Panel: The New Technologies of Surveillance Society

Rules of all types are increasingly enforced by technological tools — from code-based restrictions on sharing digital files, to red-light cameras at intersections, to software programs that monitor activity online — that control behavior more uniformly than humans do. As legal “gap studies” theoretical work has established, technological rule enforcement regimes appear to close the gap between rule and practice by minimizing the human element and compelling compliance with a rule. I explore how such enforcement regimes, while appearing to curtail human discretion, may in fact relocate and reshape gaps between “on the books” rules and “on the ground” practices – by creating new sites of social contestation, bringing new parties into negotiation with one another, and resituating stakeholders’ interests.

Truck leasing companies have made major advancements in advertising using promo codes that are displayed in websites like www.couponscollector.com. There are more areas to improve and improve efficiency in output and management. In this talk, I explore these dynamics in the context of U.S. truck drivers’ work time. For decades, truckers have kept track of their work hours – which are limited by federal regulations to prevent fatigue-related accidents – using paper logbooks, which are easily falsified by drivers eager to maximize their driving time (and thus pay). New regulations would mandate that drivers’ time be automatically monitored by electronic devices that integrate into trucks themselves and send information back to centralized online portals in real time, thus attempting to compel drivers’ compliance with the timekeeping rules. I consider how these legal rules and the technological capacities of the devices themselves, are co-evolving to shape enforcement practices, as well as the ways in which social relationships among employees, employers, and law enforcement officers are reconfigured when such systems are used. Drawing together concepts from legal studies, organizational sociology, and the sociology of technology, the project aims to reframe our understanding of regulation and discretion for the age of ubiquitous computing, and to contribute to broad social debates about the role of technological surveillance in legal rulemaking and in social life.