Choose
an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your
opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 400
words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or
'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text
'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave
McMillan.
refer also to the lecture, 'Panopticism' (25 /10 /12), and the accompanying seminar.
The
panopticon was a building providing the ultimate method of surveillance
designed by Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The architecture
of the building meant that one supervisor could observe all the
occupiers of the institution from a central tower “shut up a madman, a
patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy. By the effect of
backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely
against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the
periphery... constantly visible.” [Panopticism, Michel Foucault] The
fact that the inmates of the panopticon were constantly being watched
meant that they behaved in a way one does when they know they are being
watched, unlike in old fashioned dungeons where the inmate is enveloped
in darkness and could be getting up to no good. “So it is not necessary
to use force to constrain the convict to good behaviour.”
[Panopticism, Michel Foucault pg 61.]
In
the modern day world, panopticism is visible in many forms. CCTV
Cameras in shops, lifts, museums, nearly everywhere, hospital wards and
lecture theatres. However a fairly new method compared to these is
Social Networking. A great example of this is the social networking
site, Facebook, now with over one billion users it acts as a panopticon
in the form of information sharing. Similar to the surveillance method
used for patients with the plague at the end of the seventeenth century,
which Foucault talks about “a system of permanent registration: reports
from the syndics to the intendants, from the intendants to the
magistrates or mayor... this document bears ‘the name, age, sex of
everyone, notwithstanding his conditions’” [Michel Foucault pg 61.]
This has a lot in common with Facebook, however online people choose to
share their information. The concept of viewing someones profile,
whether or not you are friends with them and having access to personal
information such as name, age, where you live, current and previous job,
current and previous places of study, gender, sexuality, interests and
pictures acts as a panopticon in a slightly different way from Bentham's
architectural design. Instead of there being one supervisor or
“watchman” everyone in the Facebook community can watch other peoples Facebook activity while they themselves may be being watched also. A
user’s presence on Facebook is “constantly visible” which results in
many people creating a false representation of themselves online by only
adding attractive photo’s and removing the unattractive or advertising a
lifestyle they don’t truly have.
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