Task 1: Panopticism (Re-worked)

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 200-300 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using no less than 5 quotes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.

To ensure a factory runs continually with a high rate of work and no coalitions, a factory operates using a system in order to ensure each factory worker's behaviour conforms to the desired behaviours of the factory manager. This is based on the Panopticon model of how modern society organises it's knowledge, it's power, it's surveillance of bodies and it's training of bodies; a system of 'permanent registration.' (Foucault, 1977) The form of power imposed by the factory manager enables the factory workers to become 'docile bodies' who are 'self-monitoring', 'self-correcting' and 'obedient' through systems in place, such as workers timesheets and an open work place. 'Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility thats assures the automatic functioning of power.' (Foucault, 1977) However, it is the 'discipline' which 'brings into play its power.' (Foucault, 1977) The workers themselves hold internalised mental control rather than having physical control imposed on them by the factory manager; in a conscious state the workers will behave in the way in which they think the factory manager wants them to. This demonstrates 'the penetration of regulation into even the smallest details of everyday life.' (Foucault, 1977) The open plan factory layout is key within this structure and uses the rules of the Panopticon model; thus ensuring that each person can be seen by the factory manager but not know when they will be seen; the power in the factory is 'visible and unverifiable' (Foucault, 1977). The power status between the factory worker and that of the manager ensures the workers are highly productive as they are aware they could be watched at any given time, this is the 'utopia of a perfectly governed city.' (Foucault, 1977) whereby a 'guarantee of order' (Foucault, 1977) emerges. The factory manager is a constant reminder of power to the workers which results in the worker being 'caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearer.' (Foucault, 1977) However, power is not a thing or a capacity people have, it is a relation between different individuals which can only exist when it is being exercised. 'A real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation.' (Foucault, 1977)

 

 

References 

 

Michel Foucault, 1977. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. First American Edition Edition. Pantheon Books.