Foucault's theory on the Panopticon relating to the Internet

1. The Eye of Power
Michel Foucault

3. Panopticon

5. Democracy

6. Transparent Society

7. 'Each comrade becomes an overseer'
“Each Comrade becomes an
overseer.” -Bentham pg 152

8. Justice Punishment

9. Justice = Prevention of
wrongdoing

10. Disciplinary Society

11. “Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories,
schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble
prisons?”
“All that is then needed is to put an overseer in
the tower and place in each of the cells a lunatic,
a patient, a convict, a worker or a schoolboy.”pg147

12. Power Structures

13. “Yet it is hard to discern who it is who stands to
profit from the organised space that Bentham conceived.
Does society benefit or the elite from surveillance?”
-Jean-Pierre Barou pg 156

16. “As long as the government is allowed to collect
all Internet data, the perceived exigency will
drive honest civil servants to reach more broadly
and deeply into our networked live.”
-Yochai Benkler

17. “One has the feeling of confronting an
infernal model that no one, either the watcher
or the watched, can escape.”
-Jean-Pierre Barou pg 156

20. When does surveillance turn
into malveillence?
List some situations
in which it has. List situations in
which it has benefitted society.

21. Where do we draw the line between national
security and information privacy?
Is it necessary to monitor all citizens all the
time? What is there to hide if you aren’t doing
anything wrong?
Split into two groups and debate this question.

22. Who will oversee the overseer?
Discuss some ways in which the
government can be monitored by a
network of internet users.

23. Some would argue that in being monitored by society our
sense of right and wrong is taken away and delegated to
the government. Why think of what is right and wrong if
someone else is doing it for you?