Panopticism - Surveillance and Society

Notes 1&2.

Notes 3&4.

















Michel Foucault
(1926-1984) theory is based around a disciplinary society.

Michel Foucault.
















Madness & Civilisation
The Great Confinement in the late 1600's saw 'Houses of Correction' hold the unemployed, mad and vagabonds... anyone who was deemed useless to society. Inside these 'Houses of Correction' the inmates were put to work to give them 'moral fibre' and taught how to be 'normal' out of the public view. However, all these criminals and lazy folk inside one place cause trouble. Corruption boomed and segregation has to be used through asylems.

The Birth of the Asylem.




















Discipline
Houses of correction used physical control. Asylems used mental control. Through the emergence of forms of knowledge such as biology, psychiatry and medicine, Foucault aimed to show how these forms of knowledge and rationalising institutions like the prison, the asylum, the hospital, the school, now affect human beings in such a way that they alter our consciousness and that they internalise our responsibility. Discipline is a technology to keep someone under surveillance and control his behaviour.

Panopticon BuildingJeremy Bentham designed in 1791 (before Foucault). It was a prison where the cells were on the outer section surrounding a centre of which there was an observation tower. Every prisoner was isolated (a form of mental control) and this model was the exact opposite to the houses of correction. The Panopticon internalises in the individual the state that he is always being watched. In this model, people do not step out of line because of fear, the prisoner self regulates their own behaviour. This can lead to the redundancy for an actual observer, as all occupants are self regulating, there is no need for further regulation. Fear is the greatest factor. 'Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. ' (Foucault, 1975).

Jeremy Bethams blue print for a Panopticon.

Self Regaulation.
























Panopticism
This models allows scrutiny of subjects and was suggested to be applied to schools among others. Now it is deemed as inhumane due to the sense of psychological torture endured by the self regulator but we can see its presence in many places even today. Modern Bars, where we are seen easily by all staff, Google street view, The Office and CCTV are all examples of panopticism in modern society.

Image removed from Google Street View. We are bring watched everywhere.












Power, relationship and the body
 'Power relations have an immediate hold upon it [the body]; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs’ (Foucault 1975). This disciplinary society produces what Foucault calls docile bodies, self monitoring, self correcting, obedient bodies. A good example of a docile body is people working out showing everyone else. They are obedient. Another perfect example is a soldier. Power is a relationship and relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted.