New Media and The Information Society
Page 187 : Fake Identities with No Fear :
Those who are excited about the possibilities of Social media and the Internet are failing to ask who will control the information, to whom it will be made available, and to who's interests it is likely to be run. The answers to these questions can be traced back to the needs of global capital. For instance, social communities are places built upon irony and play, unlike real communities which are places of obligation and responsibility. If within cyberspace we are able to disguise our identities, this effectively denies the possibility of a genuinely democratic communicative exchange, where the particularity of the "other" has to be engaged. Instead, it creates a 'Kingdom of information, whose palatial halls we may wander, without fear, free from chaos, dirt and obscurity'.
Page 188: Online Communities Emerge, Real Communities disappear :
Indeed the desire to create 'virtual' communities over the web, both points to the disappearance of 'real' communal relations, and to the fact that humans desperate need a sense of belonging, and will create this with whatever tools they currently have to hand.
The human need a desire for community are what the advocates for cyber solutions are currently manipulating.
Page 201: Intimacy at a distance :
With the arrival of the Internet, Mobile Phones and Multi-Channel Television Cultures, the shifting of images and perspectives have invited the prospect of a more generally global as well as local sets of concerns. The medias ability to move text and images through time and space opens up the possibility of what J.B. Thompson (1995) had described as 'intimacy at a distance' .
Virilio (1999) argues 'it is necessary to determine what is negative in what seems positive. We know we can only advance in technology by realising its specific accident, it's specific negativity'. Indeed Virillio has argues over many publications that the impact of new technolgies is overwhelmingly negative. The 'real time' of modern communications has fundamentality altered and distored our shared conception of reality.
Page 202: New Identity, distancing from Real Human Relations :
In the promise of cyborg realtions, which melt the sidinctions between humans and technology, what is being offered is the 'thrill of escape'. In the new media universe, we are invited to choose new disguises and assume new identities, thereby distancing ourselves from real human relations.
Identity
Page 25/25 :
They are hardly a valid substitution for the solid, and pretending to be yet more solid, forms of togetherness that thanks to their genuine or putative solidity could promise that comforting (even if fraudulent) "we feeling" - not offered by surfing the net.
To quote Clifford Stoll, a self-confessed, but now cured, internet addict: "...we are losing the ability to enter into spontaneous reaction with real people."
Page 82 : Anxiety :
There is a constant threat to social integration and also to the feeling of individual security and self-assurnace. This in turn creates and maintains a state of high anxiety. The task of putting ones self identity together, of making it coherent and presenting it for public approval requires lifelong attention , continuous vigilance and incessant effort with no hope of respite.
Digital Visual Culture
Page 183:
Domestic consumption of visual digital culture must be sharply contrasted to the metaphor of 'the window on the world'.
Facebook and Panopticism: Healthy Curiosity or Stalking?
Page 2 : Facebook effect on people :
This begs the question: What are younger generations doing online today, and why are they spending so much time there? Use of the Internet for daily communication has an effect on the socialization skills for many people. With the advent of social networking sites and matchmaking websites, “some researchers have recently postulated that computer-mediated communication and online social networks foster connections between participants, supporting a wide array of relationships” (Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfeld, 2006, p. 167). Thus, communication through social networking sites should be studied because it affects people in different ways.
Page 3: Watching without being seen :
An analysis of Foucault’s interpretation of Bentham’s panopticon explains that “the watcher cannot be seen or identified by the watched, the [watched] develop an impersonal and anonymous relationship with power. Without being able to verify the presence of the watcher, they soon behave as if they are being watched, without knowing for certain whether or not this is the case. Thus, discipline becomes self-regulatory”(Downing, 2008, p. 82). Watching without being seen is actually a common practice
within our social lives; and the same can be said for our social lives online: People can view the profiles of their acquaintances without their knowledge every day, and multiple times a day. This encompasses what Downing suggests in her analysis of Foucault that “the effects of disciplinary power are not exercised from a single vantage point, but are mobile, multivalent and internal to the very fabric of our everyday life” (p. 83). Using this theoretical framework as a model for a strict reading of the Facebook community, multiple users come together as an equal yet diverse group to form a virtual community where the act of viewing one another’s profiles centrally is not seen as uncommon or as stalking; rather, it is a norm of the community. Therefore, the completion of this study will help to explain current user behaviors (with respect to curiosity and stalking) on the site and to consider the implications of the findings for society as a whole.
The Rise of Social Networking Sites
Page 4 : Facebook Success :
social networking websites have been one of the main internet success stories in recent years, Facebook
receiving most of the attention as it continues to become a growing success” (p. 471). Additionally, because “new media [have] now adapted the use of social web services as a vital means of interacting, communicating and sharing,”
Page 5 : Offline Relationships Online :
social networking websites have been one of the main internet success stories in recent years, Facebook
receiving most of the attention as it continues to become a growing success” (p. 471). Additionally, because “new media [have] now adapted the use of social web services as a vital means of interacting, communicating and sharing,”
“…self-enhancement, self-protection and self-esteem are all motivating factors for using the Internet” (p. 5),
Page 10 : Good points about Facebook
Lenhart (2009) also reports that the primary use of social networking sites is for personal reasons. Essentially, the project’s findings suggest that “most adults use online social networks primarily to connect with friends” (p. 6). The project’s findings also report that “enthusiastic users have used [social networks]…to help organize and disseminated information during major events…” (Lenhart & Fox, 2009, p. 2). Users also report purposes for using networking sites to include “airing complaints…, sharing ideas, forwarding interesting material, documenting events, conversing and flirting” (p. 2).
Page 12 : Lampe, Ellison & Steinfield, 2006 : Facebook Surveillance :
Because Facebook offers features that afford users a unique look into the lives of their friends upon logging into the site, many “users may assume that others are engaging in the same types of behaviors they report in themselves, namely searching for information about their offline connections” (p. 169). Therefore, Lampe and colleagues assert that “Facebook members seem to be using Facebook as a surveillance tool for maintaining previous relationships, and as a ‘social search’ tool by which they investigate people they’ve met offline” (p. 170).
Page 12 : More Confidence Online :
According to Joinson (2003), “some Internet users may experience less inhibition online and be more outgoing, social, and involved than in face-to-face situations” (as cited in Zywica & Danowski, 2008, p. 7).
Page 14 : Stalking / Links to Panopticon
“the aspect of ‘stalking’ was found to be a common activity on Facebook, which was generally done in
secret where users felt guilty at intruding on their friends’ privacy” (p. 473).
These ideas tie in perfectly with readings of Foucault with respect to identity and individuality and of Bentham’s rendering of the panopticon. As discussed previously, Foucault (1988) explains that “it [is] generally acknowledged that it was good to be reflective… to set aside a few moments a day…for a retreat into [one]self” (p. 27), and social networking websites typically provide an arena for one to achieve this.
Page 20 : Facebook / Panopticon
This voyeuristic quality of Bentham’s panopticon is relevant to the world of social networking: Members of social networking communities can view their friends’ profiles at any time without their friends’ knowledge. Depending on the privacy parameters one has for their Facebook profile, almost anyone can have access to the information users make available on their profiles. This relates directly to Bozovic’s (1995) statement concerning Bentham’s panopticon that “nothing can be achieved through reality that cannot be achieved as well through appearance” (p. 7). In essence, what one makes available through virtual means becomes reality for all who have access.
Essentially, the panoptic structure involves prisoners housed in a central location within view of a guard tower where the guards are either physically watching or giving the impression that they are watching the prisoners’ every movement. This causes the prisoners to self-regulate because they believe that their actions are constantly being monitored from the guard tower. The ideas postulated by Bentham and later Michel Foucault are suggestive of user-generated social networking profiles such as those on
Facebook. Online identities are often either over the top or very limited: Neither shows a clear picture of one’s true identity, which in essence creates a fictional being that sustains an identity in a virtual space. With respect to panoptic features, social networking sites,and Facebook specifically, are unique because the watchers or guards are mostly random others and untrained eyes, as opposed to authority figures (though authority figures are present within networks as Facebook is now open to the public). Each member of the community takes on the role of the vulnerable prisoner who self-regulates based on who they think is viewing their material while simultaneously acting as a guard who watches and imposes a sense of authority over the watched.
Michael Foucault : power/Knowledge and Individuality
Page 22 :
Using this as a model for a strict reading of the Facebook community, multiple users come together as an equal yet diverse group to form a virtual community where the act of viewing one another’s profiles centrally is not seen as uncommon or as stalking; rather, it is a norm of the community. Essentially, this idea encompasses Foucault’s thoughts that “the panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever being seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen” (p. 201-202).
Page 84 : Panopticon
Facebook is a modern day panopticon. It is important to realize that, with regard to Bentham’s original structure, at some point or another, everyone takes on the role of the guard or prisoner. However, what is fascinating about Facebook’s panoptic features is that these roles can be taken on simultaneously. Facebook stalking, therefore, is determined to be fueled by a healthy curiosity that feeds one’s desire to know about their friends and therefore perform surveillance activities. By virtue of the site’s design, we are all encouraged to be ‘stalkers’ in some way, and the act of looking is celebrated and even embraced as just another method of keeping tabs on those we consider to be our friends, both actual and virtual.
Michael Foucault Piece on Panopticism
"They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualised and constantly visible."
Great sentence that describes the experience of a Panopticon. A good example would be a small theatre on stage on your own with everyone looking at you. Facebook has the same qualities of a small stage.
If everything is light and in the open, somehow this is better. Constantly visible. Always detectable. Being in the light is not nessceerily being protected.
"He is seen but he does not see... axial visibility... lateral invisibility. And this invisibility is a guarantee of order."
"The crowd, a compact mass, a locus of multiple exchanges, individualities merging together, a collective effect, is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individuals. "
It is much easier to control the mass. People in black hoodies can slip in and out unknown but Individuals are much easier to control.
"The major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the intimate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in it's action."
Great Summary of the Panopticon. It doesn't matter if there is an observer because the panopticon is a 'MACHINE'.
Initial Essay (shit)
When Looking at the initial concepts of the Panopticon, it is clear that you can see how some of these effects function in todays societies. "The major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the intimate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in it's action."(Foucault, Page 65). Foucoult's thoughts could quite easily be applied to Facebook as the ultimate panopticon in todays society, and in fact, social media suits the ideologies of the Panopticon alarmingly well.
Currently, there are over 955 million users on facebook, each with their own profile, information and photographs of themselves. This makes it, probably the biggest part of the surveillant society and mentality which believes in trading surveillance for security in todays ever growing population. Whist engaging with Facebook on a day-to-day basis, we are actively becoming the surveirer as we 'stalk' peoples profiles, whilst also being constantly and critically observed in depth, by the hundreds of online 'friends'; Many of which, we don't know personally, or have never met in person.
Facebook, in a way, is like a stage in a theatre. It's, much like the Panopticon, in the fact that it's like a "Capillary functioning of power."(Foucault, Page 62). It allows you to broadcast your life, or more realistically, elements of your life that you choose you want people to see. This causes us to be selective with what information we want to share on our profiles and also encourages to fabricate situations or even act differently in order to achieve something that we want our surveyors to see.
On another level, we privately act as the surveyor. We can delve deep into peoples lives without them ever knowing who exactly is watching. But we do know we are being watched, which in turn makes us carefully craft our perfect life in order to feel wanted in social society. "He is seen but he does not see... axial visibility... lateral invisibility. And this invisibility is a guarantee of order." (Foucault, Page 65) When comparing this to the forces of the Panopticon, the feeling of togetherness "is abolished and replaced by a collection of separated individuals." (Foucault, Page 65) The prisoners are seen but without knowing who and when people are watching them, causing them to be on their best behaviour at all times, just like how we function across our online presence through social media websites.
The power relation between Facebook and the user is not one of discipline, but one of coercion. As there are increasing powers of surveillance forced upon us by the different institutes we fall under, Facebook is playing into the hands of the institutions, and in a way, becoming an institution in it's own right. When users “share” and do so often, the value of the platform goes up, and this means that there is only one winner, Mark Zuckerberg (owner of facebook) and his advertisers . Facebook, along with other forms of expanding, extreme surveillance is slowly creating "a utopia of a perfect governed city." (Foucoult, Page 62) One in which, we are constantly trying to please each other, and inadvertently, the bigger institutions, in a way that can give us a false sense of security, in our false online lives.
In conclusion, I think that those who fail to see the resemblance between the panopticon and facebook are oblivious to the amount of information Facebook knows about millions of people all over the world. When you look into applying the concepts of the panopticon to Facebook, it's easy to see how the social media site could be used for the government to help keep an extreme form of social control over us. Personally, I feel it's important to keep tabs on how much personal information is being shared through social media websites because it doesn't take much for an institution to take complete control of our lives.
