A new surveillance society

Human society has been using punishment to preserve social order for centuries, but during the 18th century, this idea shifted, giving space to the prisons as a reform centre. Foucault identified disciplinary power as a new way of controlling individuals, not only in prison but everywhere in western society, using observation as a form of power. In the 40 years since Foucault's argument, technological advancement has influenced surveillance techniques and our daily life leading to the necessity of Foucault's theory adaptation to contemporary society. This essay will first examine the historical alteration from power/fear to power/knowledge relationship and the expansion of Weber's definition of the role of power in societies with Foucault's introduction of disciplinary power. Then, through the analogy of the Panopticon, it will investigate how disciplinary power operates and how it is detected not only in prison but everywhere in society leading to a “carceral archipelago”. This paper will then evaluate the development of surveillance technologies and their implication on the necessity to expand Foucault's idea towards a post-panopticism through the analysis of Lyon's surveillance society theory and the observed phenomenon of surveillance privatisation, not only as means of security but also of entertainment. What is more, this essay will use Mathiesen's Synopticism and the widespread acceptance of surveillance after 9/11 to assess Foucault's theory's lack of mass media's role in surveillance processes. Finally, through Beller’s cinematic vision and Albuquerque analysis of the dual relationship between the observer and the observed, this essay will explore how the process of normalisation is affected by the blurred private-public boundaries encountered in the electronic era with the introduction of the Internet and social media in the contemporary world.
             

Social control is a process by which the behaviour of individuals is adjusted towards conformity with rules to address deviance and maintaining social order (Scott and Marshall, 2005). Michel Foucault examined the link between power, knowledge and the increased surveillance to discipline individuals through the historical alteration in the criminal justice system, from the public execution to the prison timetable. He describes this system of control as disciplinary power, the new model of training individuals, not only in prison but in the whole of modern society (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). Foucault presents his theory by investigating the historical shift from the methods of punishment used before the 19th century, with an underlying power/fear related to the power/knowledge relationship found through the increase of imprisonment and surveillance as a universal punitive model of criminals (in Stones, p. 281, 2008). Machiavelli stated: "It is much safer to be feared than loved...fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails" (Machiavelli and Bondanella, 2005, p.46). He shows how the state (the prince), before modern society, maintained social order and supreme control through a power/fear relationship. Yet, during the 18th century, the philosophy of classical criminology emerged with the attempt to rationalise punishment and create a proportionate scale to the objective harm caused (Scott and Marshall, 2005). Furthermore, Industrialization, the increased bureaucratisation, and enlightened progress led to new control processes characterised by penalties and the expansion, in western society, of imprisonment in the 19th century (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). Imprisonment is characterised by the privatisation of punishment, abolishing its spectacle, and replacing it with a new punitive justice, the discipline of the soul and the power/knowledge relationship. In other words, the power of knowledge, where the investigation and punishment mixed and led to the use of observation as a deterrent (Foucault, 2020).

The role of power in society has been studied by many sociologists, from Weber to Foucault, finding different insights. According to Max Weber (1920), power arises not only in a conflict between subordinates and superordinates to achieve desired ends. But also in a consensual context in which individuals accept authority, a power viewed as legitimate rather than coercive (Scott and Marshall, 2005). In contrast, Michel Foucault introduces disciplinary power, a productive non-repressive strategy that generates knowledge aiming to sculpt the behaviour of individuals (Schirato, 2020). What is more, Foucault identifies discipline as a form of subtle domination that produces docile, productive and obedient bodies with fully internalised beliefs and values of the dominant society for capitalists' profit. But to achieve this end, it employs different techniques in the specific surveillance. Whereas Weber identifies power as an ability to overcome others, Foucault highlights power as a subtle strategy more suitable for today's society.

Furthermore, Foucault, through the introduction of the Panopticon, the plan of Bentham J. for a newly privatised penitentiary, evaluates the functioning of disciplinary power. The Panopticon does not act only as a deprivation of liberty but also as a training strategy using three methods: Hierarchical observation, normalising judgement and examination. Foucault, through the evaluation of the Panopticon structure, emphasises the role of the central observational tower, the isolation of bodies, the introduction of the timetable, and the duration of punishment as keys feature towards the production of subjectified individuals conformed to an industrial society by the internalisation of general norms. The continuous observation produces, in the prisoners, a constant illusion of being observed, inducing a persistent consciousness of visibility which results in a state of sovereignty (Foucault, 2020). What is more, Foucault used the term “carceral archipelago” to draw on his theory of the expansion of disciplinary power everywhere in society, especially in social institutions such as schools. This strategy enables the production of a disciplinary-normalised population through small-independent state institutions, where the few observe the masses, for the education of productive individuals due to his effective strategy of subtle coercion enabling his extension in the whole social body (Foucault, 2020). The school building in itself is a training facility, and in its layout, it is possible to notice discipline techniques also used in prisons, such as the distribution of rooms like a series of cells, the arrangement of individual school desks, the subdivision into a timetable, and constant examination. This power of observation makes disciplines an efficient and silent strategy of control and training of individuals, which is possible to encounter in several social institutions (Marsh, Campbell and Keating, 1998). The former works on actions, not bodies, making disciplinary power accepted and generalised throughout society. Consequently, suitable not only for reforming inmates but also to shape individuals in other social institutions, such as schools, workers and the army. (Stones, 2008).

This paper, so far, has investigated the reconfiguration in punishment practice with the introduction, according to Foucault, of disciplinary power and the consequent extension of the discipline of surveillance through state institutions. This essay will now reflect on how the changes in the social control systems and technological advancements have shaped Foucault’s idea, emphasising the necessary development of his theory.

The penal system has expanded in the 21st-century, becoming an industry in crisis. In the UK, the prison population increased by 79% from 1990 to 2008, and privatisation has been one way of handling this massive expansion creating a new punishment system for profit, leading to a shift from disciplinary state power to a surveillance society. The privatisation of surveillance, in western developed countries, is not encountered only in prison but in all kinds of public places, making our a surveillance society, one according to Lyon (2001), dependent on information technologies resulting in the monitoring of everyday life, for administrative and control processes. For instance, London is the most surveillance city in Europe with half a million CCTV, and this phenomenon does not include only private companies but also private citizens (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). The term surveillance society implies that the state is no longer the mastermind of the disciplinary strategy, as Foucault imagined the Panopticon tower. In modern society, the primary actors of surveillance are non-state actors, private-independent bodies that make personal information an economic resource, creating consumer surveillance. Whereas Foucault identified ours as a carceral society, the shift from a disciplinary to a surveillance society characterised by the privatisation of surveillance technologies bring new insight into a contemporary era that may need to move towards a post-panoptical model (Wills, 2016). Moreover, Lyon (2007) observes that greater surveillance not only in governmental institutions but also in the public sphere can be viewed as a result of Panopticism, but in surveillance societies, people are not only constantly under observation they become observers. The Neighbourhood Watch schemes started in 1982, is an example of an informal surveillance operation carried out by private citizens watching over their communities (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). Lyon (2007) also observes that new technologies such as CCTVs, televisions, phones have expanded from government departments to private hands, not just as means of security but also as entertainment. (In Mansell et al., p. 259, 2007). In short, based on the expansion of social control techniques and the subsequent privatisation, it is possible to notice that the boundaries between private and public have increasingly blurred with the uncertainty of who is watching.

What is more, it is noticeable in contemporary society the massive acceptance of surveillance after 9/11. The September 2001 terrorist attack enabled the state to create a state of uncertainty and unease, justifying the reinforcement of surveillance with the consequent normalisation of being watched as a shelter against danger, which resulted in the assumption that technology surveillance is appropriate despite the loss of privacy (Lyon, 2006). The increased state surveillance resulting after the terrorist attack may be seen as an elaboration of Foucault’s idea of the new emerging subtler means of social control where the few watch the many. But in his thesis, Foucault has not considered the role of the mass media and the feature of mediated watching, which prevails in contemporary society, leading to the need for further expansion of his thesis to incorporate this factor. Through the concept of Synopticism, Mathiesen considers what Foucault does not, thus the passive role of observation such as mass media. Mass media includes transmitted information through any social or technological device, which in the 21st century are reshaping life, the ear is exchanged with the eye, shaping the way we produce, consume and live our daily life (Macionis and Plummer, 2005). Mathiesen (1997) argued that whereas discipline techniques train the soul, generating a self-sovereignty state through the uncertainty of being watched. Synopticism considers the seduction mechanisms, meaning that self-discipline arises from a coercive approach and from the continuous mediatic view of others, which does not result in a coerced process towards the individual but instead positions the latter as a chooser. The former exploits the attractive property of television, the pleasure of watching, which makes it a more subtle training of the soul. In addition, Mathiesen does not invalidate Foucault’s disciplinary power thesis but instead argues that the two, the Synopticism and Panopticism occur concurrently and reinforce one another. For instance, the unprecedented display of 9/11, where the seductive property of television has allowed individuals to observe the few in their private sphere, also legitimised the panoptic by allowing the few to monitor the population. (In Haggerty and Ericson, 2019). Furthermore, whereas Foucault argues that normalisation results from constant awareness of being observed inducing internalisation of surveillance practice, Beller (2006) notes that observation with technological development became a form of capital even beyond safety measure, not just in the public sphere but also in the private one, through cinematic vision. The cinematic surveillance that stages street routines marks the transition from Panopticon to the post-panopticon. The former does not just refer to the idea of ​​the individual who watches the screen and creates a mental image of what he/she sees, but it also refers to the influence of those images' creators that may shape reality. Thus, The cinematic vision gives rise to the attention economy, which is in a continuous expansion from the cinema to the Internet and is constituted not just by actual screens but also by the awareness of one's visual impact on others. Moreover, Albuquerque (2021), through the comparison between the webcam and CCTVs, investigates the centrality of cameras in transforming the observer into the object of observation to explore the cinematic vision thesis. The use of cameras by private citizens became the vessels of surveillance technology despite the loss of privacy. The ability to film others enables individuals to become aware of their status as observers. Thus the observer realises and acts upon its actions of observation. This dual characteristic of the process of observation, according to Zizek (2002), does not only bring forth in people a performative state, normalised self-disciplined individuals as noted by Foucault, but it could also be a source of excitement that makes the individual the observer of itself. This self-observation creates generalised self-indulgence through the simultaneous state of the observer in front of the screen and as observed once entered such frame, one that individuals encounter more every day with the dual reality of city dweller and internet user, with the risk of becoming obsessed with the self-image portrait by the camera.

Nowadays, social media and internet users are increasing around the world. Social media are web applications that allow contact through technology mediation and the exchange of self user-generated content throughout the Internet, creating extended virtual identities. The Internet has expanded in previous offline devices such as tv, cameras and smartphones, creating an explosion of data volume that leads to the radical reconfiguration of social relations and the consequent obsession with being online and changes in the sense of privacy (Tsekeris, pp. 155-156, 2018). The mediated version of the self, noted by Albuquerque, is stored as a data package in the virtual world, creating a construction of the self into a database, resulting in the possible change of the Panopticon’s strategy of constant consciousness of visibility in social institutions, into participatory and voluntary surveillance in the private sphere (Albuquerque, 2021). Public and private get blurred with the new electronic era, where the electronic profile extends the individual's real identity and becomes a component and a tool of monitoring and controlling others (Wills, 2016). The disciplinary power noted everywhere in society by Foucault, which creates docile-productive bodies, is now extended in the private sphere with the goal of never-ceasing productivity with the careful study of individuals' data, produced and left behind on the Internet. From the workplace to social media, the constant consumeristic experience makes the viewer constantly wired in, resulting in individuals becoming the object of production through the passive role of observation. Thus, Post-panopticism produces objectified rather than subjectified identity, as argued by Foucault, with the reverse of the Panopticon. The central tower becomes the individual who controls itself in the created virtual platform under the constant observation of other individuals (Albuquerque,2021). In conclusion, Foucault's introduction of disciplinary power shows the historical alteration in the western justice system, from the spectacle of punishment towards the subtle use of surveillance everywhere in society with the aim of training productive-docile individuals. Foucault’s idea is essential to understand how the state shapes and influences individuals through constant observation, but nowadays is relevant to investigating how technological advancement is changing Foucault’s thesis towards a post-panopticon. This essay analysed the increase and subsequent privatisation of surveillance technologies, from the public sphere to private citizens leading to a surveillance society based on the monitoring of everyday life, not just as a means of security but also entertainment. Furthermore, the massive acceptance of surveillance after 9/11 and the lack of the role of mass media in Foucault's theory leads to the need to extend his theory. Mathiesen highlighted the simultaneity of Synopticism and Panopticism in training individuals, not just through the disciplinary power but also the mechanisms of seduction used by the mass media. The cinematic vision extends this idea by affecting the normalisation process with staged street routines. A process further influenced by the introduction of cameras in our daily lives where the observer becomes the object of its observation not just in a performative way but also by individuals' realisation of their impact on others. The normalisation process, overlooked by Foucault, remains central today due to the rise of social media and the extended reality. 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