Foucault's Panopticon

Foucault wished to have his work be a tool that users could take and apply to what they need it. In the example of Foucault’s analysis of the idea of the panopticon, originally put forward by Bentham, there has been some success of it being used in the area of modern surveillance, but more likely it has not been used in the way that Foucault has described it in his work. Beginning with an overview of how Foucault describes the panopticon and the ways in which power relations are formed in that environment, how the relationship between the seen and the seeing creates an environment that can shape behaviour. I will then move on to how modern surveillance has used those principles to create desired effects. Within modern surveillance systems the

Moving from a system of physical control and regulation of an individuals movement through time a space, to the supervision of a persons actions resulting in individuals self regulating. In the idealized utopian form of this method of control is illustrated through the panopticon, a prison proposed by Bentham where cells are arranged around a central watchtower, with each cell and its contents visible to the guards in the tower every action is under constant supervision (Boyne, 2000). While the original idea put forward by Bentham was a design for a prison, Foucault extended it to other contexts where the separation and supervision of individuals would be advantageous such as the hospital, school, and factory (Foucault, 1977; Wood, 2007) Where the panopticon is able to extend power is that the individuals in the cells are unable to see the guards in the watchtower; they can never know if in fact they are being watched at any given moment and therefore must assume that they are always being watched. Power is constantly being exercised over those within the cells and transitions from being physical and exerted by the guards to the individuals becoming self-governing and controlling their own actions as at anytime they could get caught (Deleuze, 1992; Hannah 1997). In the creation of this system the number of people needed to watch the individuals subject to surveillance is reduced to a very small number as “…surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action…” (Foucault 1977 p.201). It is through the tension of being seen without ever being able to see that the power relation is formed; one group is closely supervised, every action is or may be seen, and those who are doing the watching are invisible to those who they watch. This new type of surveillance transitions from the previous methods