The aestheticisation of surveillance: Visibility, affect, and the moral economy of digital capitalism

This article explores the aesthetic and affective normalisation of surveillance in contemporary digital capitalism. It shows how everyday practices of digital self-presentation such as posting, sharing, and taking selfies shape visibility as a moral and economic value. Drawing on Walter Benjamin’s notion of aura, Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquidity, and Byung-Chul Han’s reflections on transparency, the analysis examines how ideals of productivity, openness, and self-optimisation are translated into visual and emotional norms. The article conceptualises this dynamic as an aestheticisation of everyday surveillance, understood as a participatory regime in which users actively sustain forms of visibility through gestures of care, pleasure, and exposure. Bringing together theoretical perspectives and empirical studies on youth self-presentation, it highlights surveillance as a relational aesthetic practice embedded in platform environments. The article contributes to critical social theory by linking aesthetic experience, affect, and visibility within contemporary capitalism.