Power and Facebook Michel Foucault

Power and Facebook (Michel Foucault)

Throughout the course of his literary career, French philosopher Michael Foucault provided and considered several definitions for the term power, most of which were posited in view of the broader social implications of the word. Of particular note to this assignment is his conception of disciplinary power, which was engendered as a scion of traditional sovereign power, that in which its "form is the law of transgression and punishment…confronted by a power that is law…is he who obeys (History of Sexuality Volume 1, part 4, chapter 1, p.85)." Whereas sovereign power is generally employed as a negative effect of power in which individuals are restrained by litigation to keep from traversing society's laws and norms, disciplinary power is a more beneficial application of power which attempts to make people useful through a subtler means of curtailing their rights (Discipline and Punish, part 1, chapter 1, p. 11). This paper seeks to examine the nature of disciplinary power, and its particular techniques, to determine if internet applications of social media websites such as Facebook can be considered a manifestation of disciplinary power.

Even a cursory view of Foucault's written works will demonstrate the author's inherent concern for the exercise of power in modern social institutions such as prisons, which are readily supplied with occupants by the police (Discipline and Punish, part 3, chapter 3, p. 213). The philosopher believes that the focus of such social institutions (and prisons in particular) is to reform people rather than to merely inflict punishment upon them, which partially explains their resemblance to other correctional facilities and socio-economic institutions such as schools, factories and hospitals (Discipline and Punish, part 3, chapter 3, p. 205). The means by which they do so, however, are decidedly at variance with the typical corrective measures employed by traditional sovereign power structures in centuries prior to the 20th. Instead of publicly executing someone as a means of protecting society, modern social institutions have linked knowledge to power (History of Sexuality Volume 1, part 4, chapter 3, p. 107) to achieve a subtler method of reforming and even conforming society to its social conventions and mores. Disciplinary power, then, is based upon techniques of partitioning and visibility to allow social institutions to produce helpful individuals through the security and regulation of human differences.

Central to the conception of disciplinary power is the technique of visibility, in which an individual's actions and accountability for them may be publicly viewed and considered. This ideal form of voyeurism is intrinsically linked and founded upon Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, which is a prison designed to allow inmates to constantly be visually monitored without their being aware of the spectator's gaze (Discipline and Punish, part 3, chapter 3, p. 200).The effects of such architecture in a social institution would certainly offer a preventative aspect of crimes (Discipline and Punish, part 3, chapter 3, p. 206) that would seemingly surpass the punitive measures of traditional sovereign power. The means of surveillance would then transfer the focus of power away from mere acts of punishment to a condition which would improve society due to the inconspicuous presence of such circumspection, as the following quotation readily demonstrates. "…the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary… this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers (Discipline and Punishment, part 3, chapter 3, p.201)."

The similarity between Foucault's scenario described above in which a disciplinary power is described as being so pervasive that there is no need to actually exercise its authority -- because its subjection is so complete -- and Facebook, the ubiquitous social network which contains several key components of participant's lives, from economic and professional events to the most intimate personal details, is readily apparent. Perhaps the most salient commonality between Facebook and the Panopticism propagated by Foucault can be found in the final clause of the preceding quotation, in which the inmates are involved in a "power situation" which they are the sole "bearers" of. Facebook is a voluntary site, meaning that its prevalence is desired by a population which seeks its presence -- and the inherent restrictions it places upon the population's actions and social conventions. Foucault claims the ultimate appeal of the Panoptic application of disciplinary power is found in its intrinsic ability to make things visible, which the aforementioned social networking site certainly does by illuminating the affairs of its constituents, who are fairly numerous.