Week 4: Electronic Surveillance, Panopticism & Society

RESEARCH REPORT:
ON ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE, PANOPTICISM AND SOCIETY

On McLuhan, Foucault, Surveillance and Contemporary Society

Surveillance is not new to western culture, but has been documented for centuries. In “Surveiller at punir: Naissance de la prison,� Michel Foucault discussed Jeremy Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon. The Panoptic design of prison was published as a reform of prisons before the 17th century. Its theory of control, power, punishment and surveillance has continued through contemporary times. Having studied psychology, Foucault used Panopticism to examine western penalism. His contributions are still relevant to modern society.

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During Module 4, I responded to another student’s question with information that I had gleaned from Surveillance & Society, where I discussed “dataveillance�:

“Our time is a time of “new surveillance,� and specialists are speculating whether it will bring us more repression and social control, or whether it bring us the opportunity to discuss and resist how the new surveillance will be done.

Some scholars say that the Patriot Act only changed Internet surveillance in minor ways and added some bits of privacy protection in ways that civil libertarians and law enforcers would appreciate.�
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