Mutual surveillance on Airbnb

Abstract

Digital technology affords new means of controlling and managing. The platform economy relies on complex surveillance techniques to analyze, control, and manipulate on the basis of reviews, evaluations, and other volunteered data. This paper conceptualizes mechanisms of surveillance, with a focus on Airbnb. It sets out with a discussion of trust and reputation-building to then analyze the mechanisms employed to control guests and accommodation providers. Findings suggest that communication techniques, technological tools, services, and policies form a surveillant assemblage. Mutual evaluations are engineered as mechanisms supportive of trust. The article contributes to the discussion of emerging complexities of these forms of control, in tourism and for society more generally.

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