Contemporary urban society, amidst other things, is largely characterized by the presence of various technologies that have given rise to the creation of new forms of control. These new structures of power are subtle yet intense in nature, in the sense that they regulate an individual’s life usually through disguised means. In my paper, I will attempt to explain how Jeremy Bentham's design of the ‘Panopticon’, as explained by Foucault , can be understood as the basis for the creation of several reality shows that are aired on the television and are designed on the same principle.
Bentham’s Panopticon, as explained by Foucault in his book ‘Discipline and Punish’, is the architectural figure whose composition can be understood by the presence of an annular building on the periphery with a tower at the centre which has wide windows that open onto the inner side of the …show more content…
The underlying feature here is the entire ‘politics of seeing and being seen.’ A particular space is thus transformed into a site of inspection, since power in itself creates a kind of space. Koskela explains that space is understood to be crucial in explaining and determining social power relations. He writes- ‘Surveillance is examined as an emotional event, which is often ambivalent or mutable, without sound dynamic of security and insecurity nor power and resistance. Control seems to become dispersed and the ethos of mechanistic discipline replaced by flexible power structures. Surveillance becomes more subtle and intense, fusing material urban space and cyberspace. This makes it impossible to understand the present forms of control via analysing physical space. Rather, space is to be understood as fundamentally social, mutable, fluid and unmappable – ‘like a sparkling water’. (Society and surveillance : Koskela
Bentham’s Panopticon, as explained by Foucault in his book ‘Discipline and Punish’, is the architectural figure whose composition can be understood by the presence of an annular building on the periphery with a tower at the centre which has wide windows that open onto the inner side of the …show more content…
The underlying feature here is the entire ‘politics of seeing and being seen.’ A particular space is thus transformed into a site of inspection, since power in itself creates a kind of space. Koskela explains that space is understood to be crucial in explaining and determining social power relations. He writes- ‘Surveillance is examined as an emotional event, which is often ambivalent or mutable, without sound dynamic of security and insecurity nor power and resistance. Control seems to become dispersed and the ethos of mechanistic discipline replaced by flexible power structures. Surveillance becomes more subtle and intense, fusing material urban space and cyberspace. This makes it impossible to understand the present forms of control via analysing physical space. Rather, space is to be understood as fundamentally social, mutable, fluid and unmappable – ‘like a sparkling water’. (Society and surveillance : Koskela