Are You Looking at Me? Orchestrating Voyeuristic Events to Add Value for Those Being Observed

Abstract

Voyeurism offers audiences a window into the private lives of others. Given the widespread appeal of voyeurism, it is unsurprising that organizations have sought to commercialize voyeuristic events across various industries. Prior research has focused on the audience’s role in voyeuristic experiences. However, those being observed (i.e., observees) play an essential role in shaping audiences’ voyeuristic experiences, making it crucial to explore how voyeuristic businesses strive to manage observees’ engagement. For this exploration, we used an inductive approach. We focused on the voyeuristic business of slum tourism and interviewed the observees (slum residents), audience members (tourists), and orchestrators (tour guides) in the Dharavi slum. We found that businesses attempt to orchestrate a voyeuristic event to ensure continued observee participation by scripting the event, claiming to improve the lives of those in the transgressed community, bounding audience behavior, personalizing the observees, and memorializing the voyeuristic experience. This orchestrated interaction can temporarily blur the traditional roles of audience and observee, with some observees momentarily taking on the perspective of the audience and the audience momentarily being observed. This temporary switching of roles can enhance the experience of the voyeuristic event for the audience and for some of the nonconsenting observees.