panopticism

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=**Panopticism**=

A theory derived by French philosopher, Michel Foucault that emphasizes power relations between modern social subjects. Foucault illustrates this form of surveillance by borrowing from Jeremy Bentham’s architectural prison, the panopticon.

// //Bentham's Panopticon, shown above, is visualized as a prison where the guard tower is located in the middle, with prisoners in individual cells surrounding it. The Panopticon, referred to as the greatest prison that was never built, fuctioned through a series of blinds within the tower, allowing guards to observe prisoners. The added advantage of the Panopticon was that prisoners would not be able to tell if they were being monitored. In effect, prisoners were to assume that they were under constant surveillance, thereby encouraging self-regulation.

Foucault explains that the idea constant surveillance produces conforming behavior. “Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce the immate state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.” In a desire to conform into the ideologies of their societies, systems within the society itself encourage self-regulation. The panopticon acts as a metaphor for this type of power.

It also shows a type of gaze from the center of the tower. The guards impose gazes at the prisioners; but the prisoners' gaze is not known or shown in any extent. The guards contain a powerful gaze, though un seen by the prisoners, but it is an imaginery gaze that prisions act according to. Prisoners perform thinking their minds that the guards place constant watch on them. Which means, they act positively, and only doing what they think will be accepted by the guards.

=Panopticism and Technology=

Technology today is ever changing, resulting in a constant need for people to keep up with the demands of society. The idea of panopticism relates to this ever-changing world because people are constantly feeling like they are under surveillance or scrutiny at all times therefore they must "keep with the times" in order to fit into society. Similar to the architectural prison, people are always monitoring their lives, their materials and their attitudes although they are not sure if they are being watched or not.

This "self-regulation" keeps the public under check and encourages them to alter and adjust themselves to the change that is occurring around them whether they want to or not. As mentioned above, "In a desire to conform into the ideologies of their societies, systems within the society itself encourage self-regulation. The panopticon acts as a metaphor for this type of power", the panopticon is a visual representation of the ways in which society works to regulate behaviors and attitudes in order to adequately function.

References:** Webster, Frank, Raimo Blom, Erkki Karvonen, Harri Melin, Karrle Nordenstreng, and Puoskari Ensio. __The Information Society Reader__. 2nd ed. London: Rouledge Student Readers, 2002. p. 302-312.
 * Bentham's Panopticon:
 * Annular building, at the centre, a tower, this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring, the peripheric building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole witch of the building, they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower, the other on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other.
 * A supervisor is placed in the central tower and madman, a patient, a condemned man, and worker or schoolboys are shut up in each cell.
 * It is possible to see constantly and recognize immediately.
 * Major effect: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visible that assures the automatic functioning of power.
 * Power should be visible and unverifiable
 * Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon.
 * Unverifiable: in the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at the any one moment. But he must be sure that he may always be so.
 * The Panopticon is a marvelous machine which, whatever use one may wish to put it to, produces homogenous effects of power.
 * Its aim is to strengthen the social forces, to increase production, to develop the economy, speed education, raise the level of public morality; the increase and multiply.
 * Our society is not of spectacle, but of surveillance
 * The circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power, it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputates, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies.
 * The circuits of communication are the supports of an accumulation and a centralization of knowledge; the play of signs defines the anchorages of power, it is not that the beautiful totality of the individual is amputates, repressed, altered by our social order, it is rather that the individual is carefully fabricated in it, according to a whole technique of forces and bodies.

=Works Cited=


 * 1) Strurken, Marita and Lisa Carthwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press: Great Britain. 96 - 100.
 * 2) Webster, Frank. The Information Society Reader. Routledge: London. 302 - 312.
 * 3) The Panopticon. 7 Feb. 2006 

=Related Links:=


 * 1) [|The Eye Of Power]
 * 2) Panopticon
 * 3) Chapter 20: Panopticism- Michel Foucault