Surveillance, panopticism, and self-discipline in the digital age

The objective of this paper is to revisit the metaphor of the Panopticon, borrowed by Michel Foucault from Jeremy Bentham to describe the development of disciplinary institutions in Western societies from the early nineteenth century, and to examine its relevance for the analysis of modern electronic means of surveillance. Widely used in the early stages of the study of new surveillance technologies, the metaphor of the Panopticon, particularly in the field of ‘surveillance studies,’ is growingly seen as inadequate to understand the impact of the latest surveillance tools and practices. This paper seeks to show that dominant interpretations of Foucault’s use of Panopticon as referring to techniques of domination or to ‘power over,’ while legitimate as regards some of his earlier writings, overlook Foucault’s later works on technologies of the self. That is, in Panoptic dispositifs in particular, as well as in settings involving power/knowledge configurations defining ‘normality’ more generally, individuals may end up exercising power over themselves without any coercion. It is argued here that the development of modern information and communication technologies may be said to produce a setting, the description of which as ‘panoptic’ is even more pertinent than was the case with respect to Western societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Building upon recent empirical works on the ‘chilling effect,’ particularly in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, the article discusses modern technologies of the self—self-restraint and self-censorship—that new technologies, enabling different forms of surveillance, produce in Western societies. It also outlines the areas in which the notion of the Panopticon may be useful in terms of guiding research into self-discipline and self-restraint in the context of the proliferation of modern techniques of surveillance

Surveillance: The DNA of platform capital — The case of Cambridge Analytica put into perspective

This paper places the case of Cambridge Analytica's theft of data from Facebook user profiles into a larger context of the growing importance of surveillance in modern-day capitalism. It argues that in the current phase of capitalism, data, particularly user data, is becoming a 'fictitious commodity' that is used by various commercial entities as the key 'raw material'. The operation of such entities, which is effectively based on continuous privacy invasions, is not brought into question and is actually normalized by those who oppose only covert data acquisition as in the case of Cambridge Analytica

Surveillance: The DNA of platform capital — The case of Cambridge Analytica put into perspective

This paper places the case of Cambridge Analytica's theft of data from Facebook user profiles into a larger context of the growing importance of surveillance in modern-day capitalism. It argues that in the current phase of capitalism, data, particularly user data, is becoming a 'fictitious commodity' that is used by various commercial entities as the key 'raw material'. The operation of such entities, which is effectively based on continuous privacy invasions, is not brought into question and is actually normalized by those who oppose only covert data acquisition as in the case of Cambridge Analytica

Surveillance, panopticism, and self-discipline in the digital age

The objective of this paper is to revisit the metaphor of the Panopticon, borrowed by Michel Foucault from Jeremy Bentham to describe the development of disciplinary institutions in Western societies from the early nineteenth century, and to examine its relevance for the analysis of modern electronic means of surveillance. Widely used in the early stages of the study of new surveillance technologies, the metaphor of the Panopticon, particularly in the field of ‘surveillance studies,’ is growingly seen as inadequate to understand the impact of the latest surveillance tools and practices. This paper seeks to show that dominant interpretations of Foucault’s use of Panopticon as referring to techniques of domination or to ‘power over,’ while legitimate as regards some of his earlier writings, overlook Foucault’s later works on technologies of the self. That is, in Panoptic dispositifs in particular, as well as in settings involving power/knowledge configurations defining ‘normality’ more generally, individuals may end up exercising power over themselves without any coercion. It is argued here that the development of modern information and communication technologies may be said to produce a setting, the description of which as ‘panoptic’ is even more pertinent than was the case with respect to Western societies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Building upon recent empirical works on the ‘chilling effect,’ particularly in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, the article discusses modern technologies of the self—self-restraint and self-censorship—that new technologies, enabling different forms of surveillance, produce in Western societies. It also outlines the areas in which the notion of the Panopticon may be useful in terms of guiding research into self-discipline and self-restraint in the context of the proliferation of modern techniques of surveillance

The implications of digital employee monitoring and people analytics for power relations in the workplace

Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison project was based on three central assumptions: the omnipresence of the “watcher”; the universal visibility of objects of surveillance; and the assumption, by the “watched,” that they are under constant observation. While the metaphor of the panopticon, following Michel Foucault’s work, was often applied to workplace and workplace surveillance to highlight the “disciplining” power of the supervisor’s “gaze,” this paper argues that it is only with the recent advent of digital employee monitoring technology that the workplace is becoming truly “panoptic.” With modern electronic means of surveillance, the supervisor is always “looking”—even when not physically present or not actually watching employees—as all worker actions and movements may now be recorded and analyzed (in real time or at any time in the future). This paper argues that the modern workplace approximates Bentham’s panoptic prison much more than the “traditional” workplace ever did and examines the implications of this fundamental historical change in the paradigm of employee monitoring for power relations in the modern workplace

"The National Anthem", terrorism and digital media

in Terence McSweeney and Stuart Joy (eds.) Through the Black Mirror: Reflections on the Side Effects of the Digital Age, London: Palgrav