Plan of the Panopticon, 1843 (originally 1791), Source: The works of Jeremy Bentham vol. IV, 172-3

This is a word which I have come across the first time from reading Hand’s article.   Foucalt, the French philosopher sees the power of social conditioning where people will take responsibility or self-regulate their behaviour when they know they are being watched.  He was fascinated by the architecture of Jeremy Bentham, seen above.  Such designs were used in prisons, and it is a method for exerting control over the inmates.

I found an excellent blog write up by Tim Rayner which looks at social media as the virtual panopticon as something which is desirable in the light of how it is an affirmation of one’s personal identity.  More interesting is the self-creation process that takes place as content is shared online.

Hand (2008), however, used this under the section called zones of enclosure, where digitization is being seen as dystopian.  Sharing of data gives more power to the very bureaucratic institutions which purports to do away with the old and rigid, to a flattened power structure.

Reference:

Hand, M (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, chapter 1 of Making digital cultures: access, interactivity and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp 15-42.