Poked by the Panopticon: Facebook, Foucault and the Organization of Power in a Digital Age

(Despite the title, these are just some rough, scattered thoughts laid out with some structure, mostly working notes for a larger, more in-depth paper).

The concept of the Panopticon evokes a bleak set of consequences: Imprisonment, surveillance, a constant monitoring. But with all the trappings and paranoia associated with constantly being observed, it seems that contemporary culture is keeping its eye on the Panopticon with the distinct impression that the Panopticon is too busy looking somewhere else. I suggest that the age of digital sprawl, social networking and decentralization of power has merely fragmented the same authority into a more powerful, more invisible version of Foucault's troublesome prison monitor.

Nowhere is this theory more applicable than in the world of social networking. Users of Facebook, Myspace, and sites such as LiveJournal allow users to volunteer private information to the digital ether in exchange for access to the private information of others. For most, it seems that constant observation isn't a concern, but a goal. The exchange requires a balancing act between an authentic self, the self in relation to authority, and the cultivation of a persona in service to the community.

In the digital form, writes Kingsley Dennis, social media requires that “surveillance is enacted as a form of self-control, as self-maintenance. ... This form of discipline seems to suggest that there is little room for negligence when watchfulness is the order of the day. Yet it also prompts the 'user' … to be active and participate in the surrounding environment.”

I'm interested in this idea because it suggests that the ultimate appeal of Facebook is rooted in anxiety over being observed and corresponds to the site architecture's enthusiastic prods to users to be observed. It turns out there is plenty of information that people are willing to share: From dating histories (and, by inference, a record of your sexual history) to health (when did you get the flu last? Let's search your status updates) to purchases (Facebook can actually connect to the digital cloud of credit histories, knows what Netflix movies you've watched, and can even insert your face into advertisements for the products it knows you've purchased).
With this kind of risk, why do we make this information available? Ultimately, it comes down to our relationship with being observed, and the false sense of control that social sites give us over our image. Facebook is laid out to give you a vague sense of ownership. It has been noted elsewhere that while we refer to “our Facebook page,” in fact it is Facebook's page about us.

This page is also a ticket to greater intimacy with friends and family. Those who don't sign up or participate, if they are in a community that has embraced the networks, are quickly 'out of the loop.' This creates pressure for potential users to 'give in' to Facebook, a shift in the power dynamic of Foucault, who emphasized isolation of the individual within the Panopticon. Now, the isolation occurs outside of it: “Compared to the Panopticon the network society has a reversed operation: while in Bentham's Panopticon the captives can not live in the society, they are excluded, in the network, society makes the real, free people citizens of a second, non-existent, delusive community.” - Katalin Parti, Deviances in the Virtual Reality or the Character-Altering Power of Virtual Communities

Foucault writes that the Panopticon's power draws from it being an “enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, . . . in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined. . . . all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism.” Initially, the Panopticon is powered by invisibility: It has power over the seen because it cannot be seen, fostering the risk of observation at all times. Social networks differ in that being seen increases social power - an individual without a Facebook account severely limits their social power. Yet, the underlying architecture of observation is unrecognized. Facebook's faceless corporate entity is collecting data invisibly, while a social network is designed to reward social visibility and put pressure on others to share information. For example, the 'poke' tool can be used to encourage less-active Facebook users to log in and share information, feeding the beast.

So what is the role of our online social identities? Our day to day lives become prods for others to share their actions for the public record - even private accounts are archived and mined by Facebook. The question of hierarchy becomes more complicated, as we are all pitted into goading each other into revealing our profiles and to become larger targets.

All of this ties in to the question of the authentic against the virtual, as well. Facebook encourages a cultivation of a specialized identity: Baby pictures, the balance of work pressures (accomplishment) and social pressures (relaxation). The site leaves us with a desire to edit ourselves, constantly evaluating what we share (and in turn, who we are) by who will see us as defined by a social group, eliminating our concern for how we are seen by the invisible architecture of the corporation supporting that network. We are forced to condense all possible selves into a single articulation of identity.

As a result, the higher stakes wins: We create a profile, an image of ourselves acceptable to the most powerful individuals in our own lives, sacrificing the authentic self to what is acceptable to the most powerful observer. Your entire life, as shared on Facebook, is reduced to what you would like your boss to observe on Facebook.

Foucault seems to focus on the Panopticon as a tool for isolation. He writes, of the cells observed by the tower, that “They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible. The Panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to recognize immediately.” His flaw was to assume that the prisoners were more vulnerable when isolated. In fact, all the prisoners have a clear view of the source of control and power in this model. At any time, an attack could be orchestrated through organization, and this was a cornerstone of revolutionary-progressive, grassroots efforts in the past.

The new model is more effective: Allow the prisoners to compete with one another to climb to the top of a virtual social mountain, and render not only the true source of power but the entire architecture of power invisible. Then, sit back, collect the data, and adjust the settings of the environment accordingly.


Bibliography:

Dennis, Kingsley. Keeping a close watch - the rise of self-surveillance and the threat of digital exposure. Lecture, University of Lancaster, 7 May 2008.

Parti, Katalin. Deviances in the Virtual Reality, or The Character-Altering Power of Virtual Communities. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, Vol. 16 (2008) p. 325-343.

Piro, Joseph M. Foucault and the Architecture of Surveillance: Creating Regimes of Power in Schools, Shrines and Society. Educational Studies vol. 44 (2008) p. 30-46.