What is Panopticism?
PhD, English Literature (Lancaster University)
Date Published: 07.05.2024,
Last Updated: 07.05.2024
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Definition and origins
Panopticism is a theoretical concept developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault. It describes a mode of social control in which individuals begin to police themselves due to constant surveillance, thus shaping disciplined, docile and productive bodies. However, this panoptic gaze does not have to be visible to create disciplinary effects. In fact, Foucault argued that the idea that someone could be watching at any time, means that the individual, as a precaution, always acts as though they are being watched. As Foucault puts it in Discipline and Punish (1975), “the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary”(Excerpted in On Violence, 2007).
In “Truth and Judicial Forms” (1973) Foucault explains that,
[Panopticism] is a type of power that is applied to individuals in the form of continuous individual supervision, in the form of control, punishment, and compensation, and in the form of correction, that is, the modelling and transforming of individuals in terms of certain norms. This threefold aspect of panopticism — supervision, control, correction — seems to be a fundamental and characteristic dimension of the power relations that exist in our society. (Power, [2020])
Supervision, control, and correction we can see in a number of institutions from the prison to the school. Under this normative, disciplinary gaze, the prisoner becomes his own guard; the worker becomes his own overseer; and the school child becomes their own teacher.
According to J. Macgregor Wise, the principles of panopticism are “visibility, record keeping, differentiation, comparison, modeling and enforcing correct behavior, and defining deviant behavior”:
And therefore surveillance (the gathering and recording of information) is mobilized to control schools (assigned seats, attendance, examinations, and so on), workshops, sanitariums, hospitals, and other institutions. [...] And Foucault traces the swarming of disciplinary mechanisms into all aspects of everyday life: students aren’t just observed in school, their parents and homelife came under scrutiny as well. Henry Ford built towns for his factory workers so he could keep an eye on them after work. (Surveillance and Film, 2016)
J. Macgregor Wise
And therefore surveillance (the gathering and recording of information) is mobilized to control schools (assigned seats, attendance, examinations, and so on), workshops, sanitariums, hospitals, and other institutions. [...] And Foucault traces the swarming of disciplinary mechanisms into all aspects of everyday life: students aren’t just observed in school, their parents and homelife came under scrutiny as well. Henry Ford built towns for his factory workers so he could keep an eye on them after work. (Surveillance and Film, 2016)
Foucault’s theory derives from the Panopticon, a prison designed by Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century, which is monitored by an all-seeing inspector. It is worth noting, however, that while “Panopticon” describes Bentham’s project and “panopticism” describes Foucault’s theory, this is not consistent in academic writing with many scholars referring to “Panopticon” as an all-encompassing term.
In this study guide, we will explore the origins of panopticism by discussing Bentham’s prison design, before moving onto how Foucault applied this design to modern power structures.
The Panopticon design
The Panopticon was a prison designed by philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in a series of letters collectively entitled “Panopticon, or the Inspection-House” (1791), though the original idea came from his brother Samuel. Although the design was intended for a prison, Bentham envisioned that the layout of the Panopticon would be useful in a wide range of institutions, such as factories, asylums, hospitals, and schools.
Bentham’s plan was for a circular building with cells arranged on the outer wall, with an inspection tower in the center (Figure 1). The inspector could look into the cells and even speak to the prisoners, but they would never be able to see the inspector or even know if they were present.
(Fig. 1. Plan of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon prison, drawn by Willey Reveley in 1791. Uploaded by Plinio the elder, Wikimedia Commons, 2020)
The Panopticon’s design meant prisoners lived in a state of uncertainty, never quite sure if and when they were being watched. Prisoners would, thus, always behave as if they were under surveillance:
Ideal perfection, if that were the object, would require that each person should actually be in that predicament, during every instant of time. This being impossible, the next thing to be wished for is, that, at every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself to the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so. (Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 1791, [2020])
Jeremy Bentham
Ideal perfection, if that were the object, would require that each person should actually be in that predicament, during every instant of time. This being impossible, the next thing to be wished for is, that, at every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself to the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so. (Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 1791, [2020])
This design means that prisoners effectively guarded themselves. As Foucault explains,
[...] Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being observed at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may also be so. (1975, [2007])
Edited by Bruce B. Lawrence and Aisha Karim
[...] Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being observed at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may also be so. (1975, [2007])
Foucault uses Bentham’s design as a metaphor for how power is enacted in institutions in modern society.
Discipline: from corporal punishment to surveillance
Michel Foucault was primarily concerned with how power operates within society (for more on this, see our guide “What is Foucault's Theory of Power & Knowledge?”). Bentham’s project was of particular interest to Foucault as its reliance on the power of self-surveillance and self-discipline was indicative of how the apparatus of power had changed throughout history.
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault looks at how changes in judicial systems came about. At one time, he argues, we were a “society of the spectacle” in which the population was kept in check through the threat of corporal punishment. This threat was reinforced to the population through public floggings and executions, as a stark deterrent and a reminder of sovereign power. This method of exerting power and maintaining control changed in the nineteenth century as society moved towards containing, surveying, and closely monitoring criminals and other social deviants. As Foucault explains,
There is no need for arms, physical violence, material constraints. Just a gaze. An inspecting gaze, a gaze which each individual under its weight will end by internalising to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual thus exercising this surveillance over and against himself. A superb formula: power exercised continuously and for what turns out to be minimal cost. (1975, [2007])
The shift from corporal punishment to surveillance is both more economically viable for the state and more efficiently ensures the population conforms to the status quo.
This panoptic form of surveillance, Foucault argues, is how power is enacted throughout society now as a way of both disciplining transgressors and ensuring everyone within society is productive and adhering to normative values (and not challenging hegemonic power structures):
The panoptic schema makes any apparatus of power more intense: it assures its economy (in material, in personnel, in time); it assures its efficacy by its preventative character, its continuous functioning, and its automatic mechanisms. (1975, [2007])
Discipline and control initially used to prevent disorder and crime is now used, Foucault suggests, to make individuals useful and productive. The entire disciplinary approach is streamlined:
He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection. (Foucault, 1975, [2007])
We can argue that the widespread use of CCTV makes security guards and police officers redundant as deterrents. Constant surveillance in the form of these cameras means that individuals will act as though they are being watched and be less likely, in theory, to commit crimes. In a panoptic society, self-monitoring reduces the need for corrective measures such as prisons.
In The Inspection House, Tim Maly and Emily Horne explain that,
When a disciplinary society is operating at full potential, its members take on much of the work themselves. For Bentham, that meant prisoners coming to behave as if they were under constant observation, whether they were or not. For Foucault, that meant hierarchies of examiners, supervisors, monitors, tutors, foremen, clerks and similar functionaries efficiently gathering and transmitting information up and down the pyramids of power. Practice and surveillance become indistinguishable and individuals internalize the demands of the system in which they live. (2014)
Tim Maly and Emily Horne
When a disciplinary society is operating at full potential, its members take on much of the work themselves. For Bentham, that meant prisoners coming to behave as if they were under constant observation, whether they were or not. For Foucault, that meant hierarchies of examiners, supervisors, monitors, tutors, foremen, clerks and similar functionaries efficiently gathering and transmitting information up and down the pyramids of power. Practice and surveillance become indistinguishable and individuals internalize the demands of the system in which they live. (2014)
As we will come to see in the following sections, panopticism does not apply solely to the prevention and punishment, but to a whole range of other institutions.
School surveillance
The education system has a place of particular importance in embedding dominant ideology. The school is essential for raising disciplined individuals who will go on to work in factories; it teaches children how to follow orders regarding behavior and dress. As Emmeline Taylor writes,
schools have always been about surveillance, just as they have always sought to socialise pupils into the dominant culture of society. Part of this process is ensuring that young people are disciplined and ready to conform to the requirements of the labour force and the market; this is nothing new. (Surveillance Schools, 2013)
Emmeline Taylor
schools have always been about surveillance, just as they have always sought to socialise pupils into the dominant culture of society. Part of this process is ensuring that young people are disciplined and ready to conform to the requirements of the labour force and the market; this is nothing new. (Surveillance Schools, 2013)
While Taylor contests Foucault’s notion that disciplinary institutions such as the school were characterized by “little resistance,” (schoolchildren have been known to rebel against restrictions and rules placed upon them), she does concede that,
it should be borne in mind that the majority of pupils do conform overall to the rules of the school: the majority arrive on time, wear the correct school uniform, walk in file, learn the subjects that they are instructed to, rise at the sound of the bell, eat at the allotted time, adopt the accepted movements (for example, raising a hand to ask a question, walking on the left of the corridor or queuing patiently for lunch) and so on. (2013)
Children will eventually, according to Foucault, begin to behave as if they are being watched at all times, even when a teacher is not present. This occurs particularly in exam halls. Typically in the UK, students line up for their exams in silence, monitored by a number of teachers and other staff members. They then file into the exam halls in silence and complete their exams. Though students vastly outnumber the staff and if all chose to resist this rule and talk to one another, teachers would have little recourse to stop them. However, the panoptic gaze disciplines the students, ensuring all of them feel that they are continually being watched.
The emergence of “Surveillance Schools” has emphasized how innovations in technology have increased the intensity of the education system’s panoptic gaze. As Taylor writes,
Surveillance Schools are emerging around the globe characterised by an array of routine practices that identify, verify, categorise and track pupils. Visual surveillance technologies such as Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) are common, and a range of biometric technologies such as fingerprinting, iris scanning and palm vein readers are finding their way on to campus. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) microchips are being embedded in school ID cards and ‘smart uniforms’ to monitor pupil’s movements on and off the school premises. [...] The array of devices, whilst certainly not present in all schools, represent a shift from human-centred strategies of discipline to technological mechanisms that bring with them new narratives of risk, fear and control. (2013)
This gaze, however, may not necessarily always produce docile and obedient students, with some finding ways to thwart attempts to be surveyed, such as turning off cameras, using VPNs to access banned websites, or avoiding CCTV within schools.
The power dynamic at work here extends beyond the school gates and into the homes and lives of the parents:
[...] the Christian School must not simply train docile children; it must also make it possible to supervise the parents, to gain information as to their way of life, their resources, their piety, their morals. The school tends to constitute minute social observatories that penetrate even to the adults and exercise regular supervision over them [...] one can then go and question the parents themselves to find out whether they know their catechism and the prayers, whether they are determined to root out the vices of their children, how many beds there are in the house, and what the sleeping arrangements are; the visit may end with the giving of alms, the present of a religious picture, or the provision of additional beds. (Foucault, 1975, [2007])
While the school is not as totalizing as Bentham’s Panopticon, schoolchildren are able to leave the premises for example, it still illustrates how panopticism works in society and filters through all facets of individual’s lives.
Workplace productivity
The world of work employs tactics similar to the school system as a way of ensuring obedience and creating a cohort of disciplined workers. As Foucault explains,
The discipline of the work-shop while remaining a way of enforcing respect for the regulations and authorities, of preventing thefts or losses, tends to increase aptitudes, speeds, output, and therefore profits; it still exerts a moral influence over behaviour, but more and more it treats actions in terms of their results, introduces bodies into a machinery, forces into an economy. (1975, [2007])
In other words, disciplinary measures in the workplace (such as verbal warnings, suspension, reprimands, etc) primarily exist to produce normative behavior and create a body of passive and obedient workers to enhance productivity.
At work, a variety of methods are utilized so that the employer does not need to be an omnipresent force. As previously mentioned by Foucault, true power would mean that the employee would remain productive and rule-adherent even when the employer was absent.
Logging hours, activity tracking and even keyboard stroke monitoring are all ways that the employer can ensure the employee is working and on-task. Of course, the data from these tracking systems may never be reviewed by an employer, or may be reviewed infrequently; however, the knowledge that the employer could access this activity data is enough so that the employee polices themselves.
In In the Age of the Smart Machine (1988), Shoshana Zuboff explores how technology has transformed the workplace. As David Lyon summarizes,
At one of the workplaces investigated by Zuboff, a highly automated pulp mill, a small explosion occurred in the early hours of the morning. By scrutinizing the ‘Overview System’, a bird’s-eye view of the whole operation which was constantly recorded at five-second intervals, management could determine the exact cause of the accident; equipment failure, poor decision-making, or a sleepy operator? Workers at such sites are thus highly transparent to management even in the apparently small details of day-to-day routine. [...] Zuboff comments that in workplaces where workers as well as management have access to the personal data collected on the systems, workers exhibit ‘anticipatory conformity’, showing that the standards of management are internalized by workers.(The Electronic Eye, 2013)
David Lyon
At one of the workplaces investigated by Zuboff, a highly automated pulp mill, a small explosion occurred in the early hours of the morning. By scrutinizing the ‘Overview System’, a bird’s-eye view of the whole operation which was constantly recorded at five-second intervals, management could determine the exact cause of the accident; equipment failure, poor decision-making, or a sleepy operator? Workers at such sites are thus highly transparent to management even in the apparently small details of day-to-day routine. [...] Zuboff comments that in workplaces where workers as well as management have access to the personal data collected on the systems, workers exhibit ‘anticipatory conformity’, showing that the standards of management are internalized by workers.(The Electronic Eye, 2013)
We can see this anticipatory conformity in retail with the use of “secret shoppers,” i.e., individuals who are hired to evaluate customer service under the guise of a “regular shopper.” Unaware of who these secret shoppers are, or when they will arrive, encourages the employee to behave as though every customer is secretly evaluating them and reporting back to their employer.
To offset the harsh direct surveillance, companies also employ “subjective or normative management strategies”:
Management and control over the work process and the workforce in the IT industry hinges on the deployment of a triad of control mechanisms: technology creates an electronic panopticon, measuring, assessing and controlling the work process and the worker; new management strategies seek to integrate the culturally ‘other’ individual into the work ethos of the global company; and psychological interventions are deployed to deflect the resulting stress and strain and to create an individualised worker responsible for his or her own work destiny. (Carol Upadhya and A.R. Vasavi, In an Outpost of the Global Economy, 2012)
Edited by Carol Upadhya and A.R. Vasavi
Management and control over the work process and the workforce in the IT industry hinges on the deployment of a triad of control mechanisms: technology creates an electronic panopticon, measuring, assessing and controlling the work process and the worker; new management strategies seek to integrate the culturally ‘other’ individual into the work ethos of the global company; and psychological interventions are deployed to deflect the resulting stress and strain and to create an individualised worker responsible for his or her own work destiny. (Carol Upadhya and A.R. Vasavi, In an Outpost of the Global Economy, 2012)
The less invasive forms of surveillance include team-building, as well as individual assessments like appraisals and feedback. As employers and businesses set a metric by which to grade employees, there is intense pressure for employees to conform to these standards. This pressure to appease the employer comes not only from a need to remain employed (though this is important), but through a desire to fit in with the company culture. In Work, Self and Society, Catherine Casey explains these new discursive practices in the workplace:
Employees find themselves in, and give themselves over to, the hoped-for familiarity, sociality and stability of the team-family. The need for the social — for feeling part of a purposeful entity, for feeling valued and useful — is approximately met and people continue to work and produce the company’s products. The immediacy of the fear of peer and team discipline, and the panopticon design of the cubicle work spaces, allow few avenues of dissent, and few places of retreat at work from work. Employees are immersed in a constant, everyday process of discursive colonization -they are shaped and trained into the new desired [...] employee. They must relinquish industrial habits that include the tendency to find avenues of retreat and resistance against the company in occupational solidarities and in factional loyalties [...] (2013)
Catherine Casey
Employees find themselves in, and give themselves over to, the hoped-for familiarity, sociality and stability of the team-family. The need for the social — for feeling part of a purposeful entity, for feeling valued and useful — is approximately met and people continue to work and produce the company’s products. The immediacy of the fear of peer and team discipline, and the panopticon design of the cubicle work spaces, allow few avenues of dissent, and few places of retreat at work from work. Employees are immersed in a constant, everyday process of discursive colonization -they are shaped and trained into the new desired [...] employee. They must relinquish industrial habits that include the tendency to find avenues of retreat and resistance against the company in occupational solidarities and in factional loyalties [...] (2013)
With the COVID-19 pandemic and the widespread implementation of working from home, the panoptic gaze of employers moves beyond the walls of the factory or call centre and into the space of the home. As with students and remote learning, the overseer being able to move beyond these borders heightens the imposing nature of rules and authority. As Casey writes,
The ability to manage by remote control circumvents the traditional face-to-face encounter, and the negotiating process with workers. New information technologies can displace interpersonal contacts, and the technologies themselves can become a new site of tension and sublimated confrontation. (2013)
In “Governing Privacy as Contexts Overlap during Crisis,” Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo and Chang Liu write that,
While many workers enjoy working from home because of not having to commute, and having more flexibility for personal and family responsibilities, surveillance is catching up to the point where employers look to bring workplaces back under their control. Some employers are constantly checking-in via instant messaging and emails, as well as monitoring webcams, displays, and keyboards to extend managerial reach to employees working from home. With organizations enforcing extensive surveillance of remote workers, individual workers now carry the burden of proof of their productivity, and must offer transparency to their organizations while working from home. (The Usage and Impact of ICTs during the Covid-19 Pandemic, 2023)
Edited by Shengnan Yang, Xiaohua Zhu, and Pnina Fichman
While many workers enjoy working from home because of not having to commute, and having more flexibility for personal and family responsibilities, surveillance is catching up to the point where employers look to bring workplaces back under their control. Some employers are constantly checking-in via instant messaging and emails, as well as monitoring webcams, displays, and keyboards to extend managerial reach to employees working from home. With organizations enforcing extensive surveillance of remote workers, individual workers now carry the burden of proof of their productivity, and must offer transparency to their organizations while working from home. (The Usage and Impact of ICTs during the Covid-19 Pandemic, 2023)
Digital surveillance
Panopticism has expanded beyond the walls of disciplinary institutions and into public spaces with the advent of digital surveillance in the twentieth century, and the rise of social media in the twenty-first century. The following section will explore how the Panopticon still looms large in our modern era with the prevalent use of digital surveillance.
CCTV
The public CCTV camera is one of the most well-recognized forms of surveillance. As previously mentioned, though surveillance is used as a way to investigate crime, it is also used as a deterrent. The individual is likely unaware as to whether there is a camera in the area, and if so, whether there is anyone watching the CCTV feed live, or even if the camera is working. As such, the person polices themselves. However, as Anne Brunon-Ernst and Guillaume Tusseau argue,
Among the types of power originating from the use of CCTV, only one is said to be panoptical. It is the centrifugal power exercised from the centre to the area surrounding the surveillance camera. The other powers created by CCTV stress that, in urban settings, control is less centralised and more fragmented, and thus the panoptical model does not apply as fully as one would have first thought.(Beyond Foucault, 2016)
Edited by Anne Brunon-Ernst
Among the types of power originating from the use of CCTV, only one is said to be panoptical. It is the centrifugal power exercised from the centre to the area surrounding the surveillance camera. The other powers created by CCTV stress that, in urban settings, control is less centralised and more fragmented, and thus the panoptical model does not apply as fully as one would have first thought.(Beyond Foucault, 2016)
In other words, there is no central form of power when it comes to CCTV as many of these cameras are owned by individual businesses and often for different purposes.
Similarly, in The Maximum Surveillance Society, Gary Armstrong and Clive Norris write,
the deployment of CCTV is not to enable the enforcement of some singular disciplinary norms, but the situational norms relevant to particular sectional interests. (2020)
Gary Armstrong and Clive Norris
the deployment of CCTV is not to enable the enforcement of some singular disciplinary norms, but the situational norms relevant to particular sectional interests. (2020)
Smartphones
Other forms of technology such as smartphones can also be used to watch over us, with many unsure of what details are being shared, by and to whom:
Smartphones can operate as vectors of surveillance and counter-surveillance. They are tools that allow corporations, governments and individuals to watch over the details of our lives, but they also allow us to watch right back. [...] Power operates multidirectionally, not simply from above. We watch, we are watched and we watch each other. Smartphones enable exactly the kind of interconnectivity that Bentham designed his panopticon to avoid. We are not prevented from communicating with one another as his prisoners were, but our communications are tracked and monitored. (Maly and Horne, 2014)
This raises important questions as to privacy and autonomy in the modern world and whether individuals are aware of what they are consenting to.
Social media
The widespread nature of social media in the twenty-first century has created discourse surrounding the availability of human data. In Digital Labour and Karl Marx, Christian Fuchs explains that,
On corporate social media, targeted advertising makes use of the users’ personal data, interests, interactions, information behaviour and also the interactions with other websites. So while you are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like, it is not just you interacting with others and browsing profiles; all of these activities are framed by advertisements presented to you. These advertisements come about by permanent surveillance of your online activities. (2014)
Christian Fuchs
On corporate social media, targeted advertising makes use of the users’ personal data, interests, interactions, information behaviour and also the interactions with other websites. So while you are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the like, it is not just you interacting with others and browsing profiles; all of these activities are framed by advertisements presented to you. These advertisements come about by permanent surveillance of your online activities. (2014)
These advertisements, as Fuch points out, are “calculated assumptions” about consumer needs, and are more indicative of “marketing decisions and economic power relations” (2014). Of course, panopticism is less concerned with whether we are actually being monitored, and more interested in what effect this produces. In panopticism, the observed individual, as a result of surveillance, examines their own behavior. While many are aware that we are never sure how much of our search history is private, the question is whether we change our behavior for fear we are being monitored. This subject is up for debate, as the argument could be made that the anonymity of the internet has resulted in less self-censorship.
The influence of panopticism
In our digital age, there has been discussion as to whether panopticism is still a relevant tool for understanding and interpreting social organization. As Maly and Horne write,
The panopticon is a child of a particular time. It was conceived by Bentham at the dawn of the Age of Industry and reinterpreted by Foucault at the dawn of the Age of Information. It’s an industrial institution, created for factories, redesigned for incarceration and then adapted for everything. The disciplinary society that Foucault describes requires constant and minute attention. The trick of the panopticon is that you think you are being watched even when no one is watching. The cops are in your head. But they can only stay in your head with a lot of cunningly crafted policies and environmental affordances. The panopticon requires isolation, and isolation is in short supply in these networked times. (2014)
Despite total and “invisible” surveillance being difficult to achieve in modern times, Foucault’s work has continued to be part of the conversation surrounding surveillance, self-discipline, censorship and privacy. The concept of panopticism has been subject to much critical reinterpretation, resulting in the theorization of the Electronic panopticon, Myopic panopticon, Neo-panopticon, Superpanopticon, Cybernetic panopticon, and many others. (For a concise definition of each of these and more, see Brunon-Ernst and Tusseau, “The Panopticon as a Contemporary Icon?,” Beyond Foucault, 2016)
Foucault’s work has helped shape the field of surveillance studies, and served as a framework for critiquing elements of modern culture, such as mass media, consumerism, and the emergence of more invasive technology. The concept of panopticism has also contributed to ethical debates surrounding surveillance and individual freedom, as shown in Kevin Macnish’s The Ethics of Surveillance (2017) and Sacha Molitorisz’s Net Privacy (2020). Panopticism, along with Bentham’s original design, have contributed to discussions regarding the role architecture plays in creating a disciplinary society. Susan Flynn and Antonia Mackay’s edited collection Surveillance, Architecture and Control (2019), for example, outlines how
both culture and cultural spaces have been implicit in watching, viewing, and knowing our identity, ultimately examining the ways in which space is increasingly complicit in the definition of “watched” and “watcher”.
Edited by Susan Flynn and Antonio Mackay
both culture and cultural spaces have been implicit in watching, viewing, and knowing our identity, ultimately examining the ways in which space is increasingly complicit in the definition of “watched” and “watcher”.
We can also see the rise of social media influencers on platforms such as TikTok pose a potential threat to individuals’ privacy. Such platforms often involve content creators putting themselves (and the lives of their families and friends) under constant surveillance. Members of the public have often found themselves the subject of a viral video, filmed without their knowledge or consent. We may well see individuals monitoring their behavior in public spaces out of concern of being filmed and watched by thousands of strangers. Regardless of the role social media and new technology will play in our society in the future, it is clear from the endurance of Foucault’s concept that commentators, critics, and the general public continue to be fascinated by the social control of surveillance.
Further reading on Perlego
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (2019) by Shoshana Zuboff
Foucault, Management and Organization Theory: From Panopticon to Technologies of Self (1997) by Alan McKinlay and Ken Starkey
SuperVision: An Introduction to the Surveillance Society (2012) by John Gilliom and Torin Monahan
Pain, Pleasure, and the Greater Good: From the Panopticon to the Skinner Box and Beyond (2017) by Cathy Gere
Penal Theories and Institutions: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1971-1972 (2019) by Michel Foucault
What is panopticism in simple terms?
What is the Panopticon?
What are some examples of panopticism in modern society?
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PhD, English Literature (Lancaster University)
Sophie Raine has a PhD from Lancaster University. Her work focuses on penny dreadfuls and urban spaces. Her previous publications have been featured in VPFA (2019; 2022) and the Palgrave Handbook for Steam Age Gothic (2021) and her co-edited collection Penny Dreadfuls and the Gothic was released in 2023 with University of Wales Press.