Critical Criminology, Zemiology, and Surveillance Capitalism: Towards A Digital Zemiology

Elias, J (2026) Critical Criminology, Zemiology, and Surveillance Capitalism: Towards A Digital Zemiology. Doctoral thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.

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Abstract

Digitality (Negroponte, 1995) – describing the condition of living in the presence of ubiquitous digital technologies and the blurring of online and offline space (Hassan, 2020) – signifies the current epoch. With research highlighting the emerging psychological, social, and developmental (Haidt, 2024) harms emanating from the digital context, digitality represents a new frontier of harm production – in which gaps emerge in Critical Criminological and Zemiological knowledge.

Within this context, this research seeks to understand and assess the applicability and limitations of, and emerging opportunities within, Critical Criminology addressing Digital Harms. Utilising Zuboff’s Surveillance Capitalism (2019a) as a lens through which to conceptualise the digital context, implications for the present and future of human identity and autonomy manifest. Through this lens, an opportunity emerges to develop a Zemiology informed by the digital context that can confront the deepening harms of digitalization and consider the future of resistance practices.

Interrogating the intersection of digitalization and harm production through an exploratory case study of the ultra-fast fashion industry, distinct harms emerge which speak to a realm of harm production beyond the social – moving the Zemiological gaze toward the realm of cognition. In questioning the present and future of resistance practices, inequalities are revealed regarding who resistance tactics are accessible to.

Engaging in interdisciplinary work, this offers developments to theoretical knowledge within Critical Criminology, Zemiology, Surveillance Studies, Postphenomenology, Digital Materialism, and Disconnection Studies. This thesis presents the first theorisation of Digital Zemiology – presenting a theory of harm embedded within the context of digitality.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Zemiology; Critical Criminology; Digital Harm; Digital Zemiology; Surveillance Capitalism; Digital Criminology
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology K Law > K Law (General)
Divisions:	Law and Justice Studies
Date of acceptance:	18 December 2025
Date of first compliant Open Access:	14 January 2026
Date Deposited:	14 Jan 2026 09:45
Last Modified:	14 Jan 2026 09:46
DOI or ID number:	10.24377/LJMU.t.00027805
Supervisors:	Cross, N, Murray, E, McGowan, W and Sim, J
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27805

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