Inside Digital Panopticism

This week's blog post is in response to Michel Foucault's piece on Panopticism as well as a social capital blog entry concerning social media and the "Arab Spring". Both pieces were very interesting and thorough even if Foucault's lost some focus toward the end with the discussion of Julius Ceaser. I particularly liked the Arab spring piece as it was an expert examination on the role of government in regulating the internet. Of course, every country has a different take on the subject but it's good to read about a foreign country where the internet is a little bit more controlled and restricted than here in the US. It's even better to read about how their citizens are actively trying to change it. I had previously done some research on the "Arab spring" when it was actually in the news a couple of years ago and incorporated it into my application essay for the old journalism school here at CU. Although they said it the topicality of it at the time made it a really strong essay, I didn't get in until they completely changed the SJMC and reopened it just last year. Even though I would say I'm somewhat familiar with the subject of the Arab Spring, this blog post uncovered some facts I previously hadn't seen.

Getting back to Foucault's "panopticism", I would say it's an interesting metaphorical concept to apply to 21st century life. It still holds up and is still relevant to all of us, however I think today's lecture in class did a better job of getting the point across and defining the concept to me. It had relevant examples to student life and was more engaging than a straight dry reading of the definitions. The lecture made the concept seem more applicable to all of us, which is important because it certainly is more and more relevant to life in this digital age than ever.

Rather than raise an entirely new point based off these readings, I would like to restate a point I made in class earlier today and elaborate on it further. The concept of "panopticism" is roughly defined as being monitored under surveillance of some governing body forcing one to obey their set of rules or face some form of reprimanding. This concept can be seen in action anywhere from prisons to workplaces to classrooms to even home life and even on the internet. However, the internet is where it gets a little bit tricky.

Everywhere else, the surveillance and governing bodies have already been put in place for you (teachers, parents, employers, wardens, etc.) and so has the amount of surveillance access they might have over you. For example, you're only under a teacher's surveillance when you attend their class, but you can't be under your parent's surveillance during this time because you're not at home. When you're at home, your teachers don't have surveillance over you as you're not in their class and they don't live with you at home. If you're in prison, the wardens and the guards most likely have surveillance access to you at all hours as long as you're there. On the internet, virtually anybody on earth has some surveillance access to you at any given time. This could be close friends of your with whom you interact with in real life or complete strangers from all around the globe depending on the setting and context. However, you ARE completely in control of how much surveillance access others have over you in this case.

Social media gives those one loosely defines as "friends" surveillance access to what you're doing and where you might be doing it at any given moment of the day. Still, you have the ability to post as many or as few social media updates as you may see fit. Therefore, you control how much surveillance your closest friends have into your daily life. One who goes on Twitter every week to post Instargam photos of all their meals, give their location on FourSquare about 27 times in a day and then go on Facebook and post roughly 400 photos from their weekend get together provides people more surveillance than one who just goes to their social media outlets only when they have something new or witty or important to share. Video services ara whole other story entirely. A person who is running a 24 hour webcam into their own apartment is obviously giving us more surveillance than someone who uploads videos of themselves to YouTube every so often as YouTube clips may be moment frozen in a specific time frame, but anyone can still see them anywhere and gain some insight into your life from them.

Also, the definition of "punishment" is a bit looser online than in other forms of panopticism. Your online friends can offer their own comments on whatever you may post whether they praise you, judge you, shame you or even attempt to offer some of their own constructive criticism. However, they have no real power to punish you merely via social networking portals. Still, you can take their words to heart or you can completely ignore them. However, those who run whatever site you're on still have some power to delete your content or ban you from ever using their site again entirely. In that case, it would still be partly other's responsibility to report you if they find you offensive to their own sensibilities and it would partly be on you to obey the rules and guidelines and codes of behavior of said site so that you don't post anything that might get you reported or kicked out.

Everyone has a different amount of surveillance into their lives that they are willing to give others total access to. In this era where social networking is all the rage, everyone is building their own digital panopticon to fit their own needs and desires. This may be the first and only era in human history where such a feat could be possible, albeit in a less tangible medium. What do you think?