After reading Foucault's "Panopticism" and Ohmann's "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capital," it is really hard to figure out how to express all the connections I made on this linear piece of paper. However, I will do my best to be as linear/logical as possible.
I take Foucault's argument to be that the most effective tool for efficiency, control, production, and social interaction (a lot of political and economic metaphors, which I also noticed in Ohmann), is a mechanism, of any sort, really, that takes on a life of its own and camouflages perfectly with the status quo. The panoptic view accomplishes this goal of camouflage and obscurity, because it stems from a Freudian psychological impulse/instinct to watch, be watched, and everything in between. Therefore, another criterion for successful world domination is the threat of psychological intimidation, which can be as intense (or not) as the individual chooses to make it.
As far as how Foucault's panopticism theory converges with attitudes about technological expansion, I could not help but instantly think that all of the online activities in which modern society participates -- Facebook, Twitter, Ratemyprofessor.com -- all let members of society know that we are being watched. Particularly, I made the connection between panopticism and technology when Foucault states "Power has its principle not so much in a person as a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes; in an arrangement whose internal mechanisms produce the relation in which individuals are caught up" (202). The online internet atmosphere provides the various "surfaces," "lights," "gazes," etc., and bodies collectively engaging in this atmosphere are presently very "caught up" in all of these different arenas for communicating. Therefore, the online atmosphere, and all the technologies that construct it, provide a great deal of power to someone -- maybe whoever chooses to look.
Also, on page 204, when Foucault explains that the Panopticon allows for constant supervision, ASSESSMENT, order, productivity, etc., I put in my notes: "I can't help but connect this to standardized testing!" I realize it is overwrought to assert that standardized testing directly equals the Panopticon, but much of the economic/efficiency arguments about standardized testing and placement discussed in Dr. Condon's writing assessment course last year reflect Foucault's description of the Panopticon's power to judge quality and quantity of production.
With no real smooth segue, having read Foucault first, I noticed all kinds of parallel arguments in Ohmann's piece. Ohmann's observation that definitions of literacy have become a way to measure behaviors connected to class/status, and that literacy became defined technological advances used to further production make me ask this question: does literacy, or defintions of literacy connected to economics equal the Panopticon? I especially wonder, because Ohmann illustrates in his examples on page 680 of what technologies could have become, if real agency existed, that agency and definition of a technology by actual users is often missing or in conflict with an institution's intended purpose. So, if institutions dictate how new technologies are used and assess levels of literacy with these technologies, then how are technology and literacy writ large NOT the Panopticon?
Due to these questions, I think that Ohmann's piece is still very relevant, especially because of the discussions I hear off and on about whether or not someone is using a technology correctly. Like, is there a wrong way to use Twitter, Facebook, etc.? I don't really think so, but others might. So, then, who decides? Do we or do institutions decide?
Hey Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI was really struck by your insight regarding how “all of the online activities in which modern society participates—Facebook, Twitter, Ratemyprofessor.com—all let members of society know that we are being watched”. Yes, yes, a million times, yes! This made me start to think about various social media websites, as well as other websites that deal with surveillance, such as squabbler.com (where you can upload a video of yourself and the person you’re bickering with and have the anonymous public vote on who “wins” your dispute), and chat websites like omegle.com (where you’re paired with a random person from anywhere in the world and not given any information about them—when they type something to you, it is under the username “stranger” and you appear as “you”). While the power system Foucault discusses works quite well when your identity is made known, I wonder if the same paranoia and incentive for good behavior applies to websites like omegle, where you can appear as a stranger behind a wall of text to a faceless, anonymous audience.
Oh snap! Those video argument websites exist?! I didn't even know, but I am intrigued. This potentially gives me some creative ideas for a project for the 509 classical rhetoric class. Thanks for the information, Jenna!
DeleteI thought of social media, too, when I was reading "The Eye of Power." At the bottom of page 153 (hopefully that's not the sliver you're missing, E!), Foucault mentions a fear of dark places where shadows can hide truths and secrets. I see this fear often in the responses I get when I explain I have never participated in online social networking. Others believe my anonymity affords me power over them because I am not an open book and/or they cannot "creep" on my Facebook profile page as a way to passively learn more about me and my personal preferences and activities. By successfully avoiding the "gaze," I can maintain the power. Abstaining from social media has also put me at the vulnerable end of the spectrum, however, because I don't possess the same access to information/currency as people who are "connected" at all times. Perhaps it's my unique position, but I I can clearly see how "'power through transparency' and 'subjection through illumination'" (154) are everyday realities because of the social media phenomenon.
ReplyDelete- A m y
Ah! I find interesting your connection to the idea that hidden truths and secrets create some mild fear and anxiety in people because they cannot exert their gaze on others (and perhaps they fear that it makes the gaze of "opters-out" (is that a word?) more powerful. I think this fear of not being able to exert the gaze connects to what Foucault discusses in "Panopticism," because in the only relief from the paranoia is the fact that the gaze we exert can make others paranoid, and thus the trend feeds on itself.
DeleteLooks like we both wound up worrying over Facebook! I also think that a lot of these community driven sites have shades of the panopticon, though maybe a little less sinister. I'm really glad you mentioned Ratemyprofessors.com as a part of that continuum, because I think that in a lot of ways, that site is the inverse of the others, or of the classroom as a whole. In the class, the teacher is watching and assessing the students, but on Ratemyprofessors.com the students are free to assess their teacher. The teacher knows that evaluation is taking place, but he or she is never sure by whom (I've pulled my hair out trying to guess in the past!).
ReplyDeleteI kind of like this, to be honest. I think that it empowers the students in a way that end-of-semester assessments don't. Even though the teacher leaves the room during assessment, the "eye" is still on the students: They're in a classroom, the questions are designed by the University, the teacher chooses when to hand them out in the first place (I never pass mine out during a class where I'm handing back grades, for example!). On Ratemyprofessors.com, however, the power shifts in favor of the student, leading to, in my opinion, more useful critiques.
Then again, maybe I just like it because one student said nice things about my hair on it.
Your example proves the ubiquitous-ness of the gaze, particularly because even though, as you say, teachers can look upon and assess their students, ratemyprofessor.com allows for students to reverse the gaze. Before internet, there was not as much of a public forum for this, obviously. In this way, the panoptic view is maybe kind of an equalizer of power. Except that, as Ohmann says, the institutions control our creative interpretation of new interactive technologies.
DeleteHi Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI think the fact you picked up on social media's power struggle is an important one. Every few years or so it seems users and non-users alike of social media throw up their arms in protest over their privacy rights (or lack thereof).
However, often times the lack of privacy is stated up front in something called the "user agreement". Unfortunately, we have now grown so accustom/annoyed by user agreements that they few read them at all. And who can blame them? Often times users are left starting at 50 pages of rhetoric written by lawyers and company execs who have had one job: keep the power with the company.
So while I think the voyeuristic power scenarios you outlined are important to consider, perhaps even more important still is the fact that millions of people are perfectly fine providing a random company, Facebook for example (with somewhat horrid security), their personal information, birth date, telephone number, etc., but throw a stink over phishing scams and telemarketers. The only difference with Facebook is that your friends are doing it to and usually professors don't require you to talk to a telemarketer, but they do sometimes require you to sign up for Facebook or Twitter.
I totally see your point, Adam. Jumping off of what you say about whether or not people really care whether they are watched, I wonder this: does the panoptic view weaken if people just don't care? OR is the panoptic view strengthened, because it has blended into the status quo. Admittedly, not caring could just result from institutions with their lofty and verbose rhetoric make it hard for us to care, as you mention about reading through privacy settings. Hmm...
DeleteElizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI also thought about standardized testing when I read Foucault. Perhaps because we took Dr. Condon's class together? :) Anyway, YES, YES, I absolutely agree that there are panoptic elements at play in standardized testing. When Foucault says "the disciplines are the ensemble of minute technical inventions that made it possible to increase the useful size of multiplicities by decreasing the inconveniences of the power which, in order to make them useful, must control them. A multiplicity, whether in a workshop or a nation, an army or a school, reaches the threshold of a discipline when the relation of the one to the other becomes favorable"(Panopticon 220) my mind immediately went to standardized testing in order to sort people in order to maximize them into a "useful force" (Panopticon 221).What clearer way to maintain order and power structures than by observing the testing of nearly every American citizen and then sorting them into useful little categories where we can keep an eye on them?
Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteThis post was so interesting, and at the same time creeped me out a little in how you bring the Panopticon to "real life" terms--the idea of the internet lurker, collecting our data and identities, all of which so many of us are so readily providing. Thinking of Facebook and other social media as an addiction many people have, it's interesting to even think of it as a compulsive draw we can't understand--a power we must subscribe to, just like Foucault's Panopticon is.
-Lindsay
Wow, this conversation was super fun to read....y'all are my favorites! I'm going to make a super short comment that I maybe be making on others for this post, but I mean it...
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the connections people make between Foucault and teaching w/ technology. I don't feel there is a right way to connect them, I just love seeing the thinking that goes on when people give it a go.
So, thanks for engaging with the material and with your classmates here. Fan-tas-tic!