Sociology / Unit 10 Soc 1701 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Panoptic Surveillance and New Media
Captions available
The idea
Panoptic surveillance, adapted from Bentham's panopticon prison design as analyzed by Foucault, describes how new media lets institutions shape conduct because the watched cannot verify whether they are being observed.
In practice
A nanny-cam or workplace tracking software lets a watcher observe without the watched knowing exactly when observation occurs.
Where people slip
The concept concerns behavior changing under possible observation, not observation happening at every moment.
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