Surveillance Technology In Foucault's Discipline And Punish

Crime is inevitable in society, whether it be in traditional societies or in modern society. However, with an action, there are always has to be a consequence, however when breaking the law, the consequences are rather bad, and sometimes harsh. This is called punishment. Discipline is enforcing acceptable patterns of behaviour and teaching obedience. In an excerpt called Discipline and Punish, contemporary theorist Michael Foucault explains these two concepts. This paper will summarize the author’s main points; provide a comparison with a theorist previously lectured on in class, as well as a personal interpretation of Foucault’s arguments.

It is used all around the world in many institutions in the hope that perfect order can be achieved within its population. In the 1800’s, an English philosopher by the name of Jeremy Bentham, developed the theory of the “Panopticon”. The theory was initially developed in a hope to resolve an issue brought in by the industrial age where institutions were becoming so large and systematic, that they were no longer able to monitor, and therefore control each one of their individual members. The theory was originally developed to be implemented in penitentiaries due to the rampant behaviour of the inmates. The underlying attribute of the theory left a large tower being built in the centre of the institution that allowed the guards to monitor any one of the inmates at any given time. The crucial philosophy of Bentham’s theory was that the inmates were unable to see back through the tower so essentially they never knew when or if they were being watched. Due to human nature, the prisoners would then have to constantly be under the assumption that they were being watched so therefore their behaviour would reflect on this and would produce both obedient and compliant inmates. It was then further realised by the French philosopher, Michel Foucault, that this theory could be used in any form of institution seeking to regulate human behaviour such as schools and

Surveillance is not a new thing. In fact, espionage, tracking, and sleuthing were part of society ever since 5000 B.C. But in the rise of the modern era, the idea of surveillance in the public eye serves as a controversial topic of discussion. People everywhere complain about the existence of security cameras, government tracking, and the right to privacy. Such problems, however, are not due to the sudden discovery of surveillance, but the modern abuse of it. Seeing the disastrous effects of over surveillance from George Orwell’s 1984, the public rightfully fears societal deterioration through modern surveillance abuse portrayed in Matthew Hutson’s “Even Bugs Will Be Bugged” and the effects of such in Jennifer Golbeck’s “All Eyes On You”. The abuse of surveillance induces the fear of discovery through the invasion of privacy, and ensures the omnipresence of one’s past that haunt future endeavors, to ultimately obstruct human development and the progress of society overall.

Foucault once stated, “Our society is one not of spectacle, but of surveillance; under the surface of images, one invests” (301). By this, he means that our society is full of constant supervision that is not easily seen nor displayed. In his essay, Panopticism, Foucault goes into detail about the different disciplinary societies and how surveillance has become a big part of our lives today. He explains how the disciplinary mechanisms have dramatically changed in comparison to the middle ages. Foucault analyzes in particular the Panopticon, which was a blueprint of a disciplinary institution. The idea of this institution was for inmates to be seen but not to see. As Foucault put it, “he is the object of information, never a subject in

When information is posted online for example, individuals are now aware that CSIS has full control over that information—and can get a warrant essentially whenever they want. This can lead individuals self-governing what they say, what they post—and in a way—the way they think. Based on Michel Foucault’s research in his article Discipline and Punish, CSIS’s mode of surveillance is much like the notion of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. The panopticon is an idea for a prison where there is a guard tower in the centre of a circular room. Around the perimeter of the prison is where the cells are.

According to Foucault, power does not belong to the individual, but to the system, to the institution. In his essay on Discipline and Punish, Foucault presents his idea of the panopticon mechanism, a mechanism in which visibility is a trap. With little importance over the actual individual in the role of the observer or of the observed, the object of the system is total power over the observed. Due to the unique shape of the panopticon, there are no corners and thus no blind spots for the observed to hide in. The private space is replaced by the public one. Furthermore, as final evidence of total control, the observed never knows for sure if they are being watched or not, as they can’t see the observer (Foucault 200-205). Foucault further argues that this system is followed by any government institution, placing the society under permanent observation. Individuals might try to evade the system, but achieving liberation and freedom is not something that anyone could do. Dostoevsky’s famous novel, Crime and

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

In the text “A Surveillance Society,”, authors William E. Thompson and Joseph V. Hickey provided information about growing surveillance trends, new types of technology, and the impact of the surveillance. First, many surveillance trends are becoming more popular all throughout the world. Today, there are cameras everywhere you go, whether it is on the streets or in grocery stores, almost all of the time people are being watched. Since the technology of surveillance is more common, a lot of people are being photographed many times during the day. Even if it is not a photograph of your face, the cameras can photograph your license plate and link the car back to you. A main reason these surveillance trends are growing

In where technology is an integral part of modern life, many people forget how technology is able to surveil every aspect of our daily life. For example, the government uses security cameras as a way to fight crimes and x-rays to stop terrorism. This aspect of utilizing modern technology by our government is similar to that of George Orwell’s 1984, where Oceania’s government use their telescreens to surveil their citizens. In 1984 the citizens of Oceania live in constant surveillance under Big Brother, an imaginary man created by the upper class in order to control all aspects of the population’s life. While in our current society edges closer to dystopian Oceania, in where they utilize technology to breach personal privacy; actively engaging

Through the discussion of punishment and its purpose Foucault brings up the idea of normalization. Government and other higher levels of authority have established what they consider to be proper conduct within society. Those who deter from those guidelines are punished.

Michel Foucault, a French philosopher, has brought to attention insights that help clarify how power and discipline work together to create surveillance for a large group. Foucault passed away before the birth of the internet, but has provided society with knowledge on how surveillance is applicable to the online world. In the essay Panopticism, Foucault expands on Jeremy Bentham’s theory of the panopticon. Proposed by Bentham in the mid-19th century, the panopticon is a prison which was used to observe inmates constantly (Torres, 2017). The prison has a tower in the middle, where each inmate can be seen from the tower by a guard (Foucault, 1975, 200). Therefore, the prisoners always think they are being watched as they cannot see who is in the tower, or if there even is anyone in the tower watching. Foucault describes this in his essay as being “the major effects of

In Michael Foucault’s “Discipline and Punish”, the late eighteen century English philosopher Jeremy Bentham's model of Panopticon was illustrated as a metaphor for the contemporary technologies of mass surveillance.

Stability in terms of society can be defined as the state in which power is clear and defined, and the constituents abide to those in power. In modern day institutions, a certain amount of stability must exist or people would lack the motivation to get work done and would not respond to authority. To ensure motivation, employers will install cameras, or use other techniques to always keep an eye on their workers. If people are doing nothing wrong, there is no reason to have a problem with being watched. For this reason, it is not surprising that employers set their work station similar to a Panopticon, an institutional building that is step up with someone in the middle watching everyone, but the workers don’t know if they are being

Sandra Bartky begins her piece by explaining Michel Foucault’s ideas about modern power dynamics. Unlike in the past, power in modern society focuses not only on controlling the products of the body but, rather, on governing all its activities. In order for this power to continue, people are disciplined into becoming “docile bodies” which are subjected and practiced (Bartky, 63). This discipline is imposed through constant surveillance in a manner similar to the Panopticon. Inmates in said prison are always visible to a guard in the central tower, so they mentally coerced into monitoring their own behavior. In the same way, individuals become their own jailers and subject themselves to the society’s whim due to being in a “state of conscious and permanent visibility” to its all-seeing eye (65). Bartky, however, breaks from Foucault’s theory by claiming that there is a clear difference in the disciplines imposed on men and women that are ignored in the latter’s writings.

Surveillance was used by the sovereign as a form of power “that it was more efficient and profitable in terms of the economy of power to place people under surveillance than to subject them to some exemplary penalty” (Foucault, 1977, p. 38). For Foucault individuals had more freedom in the past even though people were tortured in comparison to today, he explains to us that in the past people knew that if they committed a serious crime torture would ensue. In the prison system, prisoners are being watched at all times, everything is regulated and documentations are filled out on regular and irregular behaviour. In order to watch inmates at all times, Bentham’s architectural structure called the panoptican was used in prisons. This enabled officers to watch inmates without them knowing. All cells could not be watched at the same time but inmates did not know if they were bring observed or not so they behaved as if they were being observed. Prisoners are confined in their cells with no engagement with other inmates. Watchmen can see in but prisoners cannot see out. They are in total confinement. (Spierenburg,