Phubber Sherlock, Risky London, Safe England: Remaking Holmes in the Age of Information Technology

I intend to read the latest BBC production of Sherlock by exploring the making of digitized modernity in which confidence in science and technology is not only prominent but fundamental to instrumental rationality. Showing that violence may exist purely for the sake of violence, not for retaliation or out of self-interest, I argue that the remake of Sherlock is not concerned with criminals but criminality. By pointing out the discursive formation of digital citizenship endowed with indiscriminative rights of membership in the constant shadow of terrorist attacks, I argue that a safe England must be constructed in spite of the necessity of risk. Sherlock reveals a path leading to a digitized brave new world in which risks will be perceived as information, terrorist attacks conceived as incentives in an extended, reiterated game of prisoner's dilemma, collective safety achieved through the calculation of coding, decoding and the networking of information technology, and every single life incarcerated within the process of capturing the torrent of big data. While digital citizenship promises a future of open access, free participation, and a lower barrier of entry, the promised democracy of information technology leads to the unavoidability of criminality and fear, leading to the coexistence of safety and risk.