Everyday our decisions are influenced by the fact that someone may be watching us. I don't speed during my morning commute because of the friendly officers with radar guns. I'm careful not turn right on that red light, because of the newly installed camera.
In "Discipline and Punish", Foucault compares modern society to the Panopticon. The Panopticon was a prison design invented by Jeremy Bentham. The idea behind the Panopticon was to design a prison where a single guard could see all the prisoners but remain unseen. The fact the prisoners know that they are possibly being watched will make them behave. Foucault explains " . . . 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. " (470) The Panopticon was never actually constructed, but Foucault used this idea to form the social theory of panopticism. He explains that society has two types of disciplinary images the discipline-blockade and the discipline-mechanism. The discipline-blockade wields it power in enclosed institutions, that separate groups of individuals. Prisons, schools and hospitals are examples. The discipline-mechanism affects an entire population and relies on surveillance to force the population into compliance. Foucault named this mobile and extendible societal formation panopticism.
In our panoptic society we accept the fact authorities and other citizens are watching us and adjust our behavior accordingly. Its a quiet almost invisible form of discipline.
Over the years there has been much debate about an individual's privacy vs. the public good. People feared the surveillance and it was manifested with terms like Big Brother. Now, privacy does not seem to hold as much importance. In a post 9/11 world, citizens seem more willing to be watched, searched and recorded assuming that this makes the world a safer place. Also, and perhaps more accurately, people volunteer private information in the name of convenience, or entertainment. Its a cheery happy panopticon, where we are aware of being watched and we're comfortable with it. In fact, we use it to our gain. In this CNN.com article Pete Cashmore, claims that privacy is dead and that being too private can damage your career, and ultimately leave you marginalized in society. We are encouraged to reveal information in order to make friends and further our careers, while knowing that this information will be used by others to make money.
Ultimately, what are we really giving up and what are we gaining? I keep thinking about how exotic dancers will argue that they aren't being exploited, but work voluntarily. The "choice" makes it okay. But, with all the pressure to bank, register, educate, buy, and socialize online. Do we really have a choice?
Lisa Nakamura: Cybertyping and the Work of Race in the Age In Digital Reproduction
Want to get really depressed? Read the comments at the end of any article on dallasnews.com. Inevitably any social problem will be blamed on people of color. Its horrible. Yep. Racism is alive and well and reflected everyday on innumerable websites. Lisa Nakamura asserts that the internet has created a new kind of sterotyping and racism which she calls "cybertyping". She says:
"Cybertypes are more than just racial stereotypes "ported" to a new medium. Because the Internet is interactive and collectively authored, cybertypes are created in a peculiarly collaborative way, they reflect the way that machine enabled interactivity gives rise to images of race which both stem from a common cultural logic and seek to redress anxieties about the ways that computer-enables communication can challenge these old logics. . . Cybertypes are the images of race that arise when the fears, anxieties, and desires of privileged Western users (the majority of Internet users and content producers are still from Western nations) are scripted into a textual/graphical environment that is in constant flux and revision."
Nakamura views the promise of a "post-racial democracy" as nothing more than a device to hide racism in America. She explains that "Digital reproduction produces new iterations of race and racialism, iterations with roots in those produced by mechanical reproduction. Images of race from older media are the analog signal which the Internet optimizes for digital reproduction and transmission." Instead of moving past racial stereotypes they are more easily reproduced, amplified and distributed with digital technology.
Nakamura wrote this essay a few years before blogging and social media became commonplace. Now its is much more difficult to separate your online identity from your true identity. In fact, it seems like a waste of time. How can you be social if you are not at least some semblance of yourself? What would be the point. By contributing to the blogosphere and participating in social media, minorities now have an opportunity to express and "broadcast" their viewpoint in way that was unavailable through traditional media. And the racial stereotypes and social conflicts are also more easily disseminated. I would like to hear Nakamura's comments since the election of President Obama and his campaign's use of Web 2.0.
Especially in places like MySpace and Facebook, hiding one's identity kind of defeats the whole purpose. It still happens every now and then especially on MySpace, when adults pretend to be teenagers or fake celebrity pages are created. There are more deviant from the norm though.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are right, the comments at the end of online news articles are always depressing, and usually lead to either racially or politically charged yelling matched, with both sides stereotyping (or cybertyping) each other. It's kind of hard to believe that this still goes on in the world. But it's a wake up call to the rampant racism that still exists.