Introduction Explore ideas relating to the Panopticon

Apply these to reality television

Highlight ideas about the surveillance society

The media as judge – Superpanopticon

Learning Outcome 2

◦ Critically apply theoretical considerations to generic

popular texts

Assignment choice

A textual analysis of television programme in relation to

surveillance and panopticon

Analysis of television itself in relation to surveillance (which

can include online television, recording with Web 3.0 etc.)

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Big Brother and Reality TV

Big Brother surveillance

◦ The Truman Show (1998)

◦ 15 minutes of fame

Why viewers watch

◦ Voyeuristic pleasures

◦ Suffering of others – reassures us

◦ Schadenfreude (pleasure at the misfortune of

others)

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THE PANOPTICON

• Bentham - 18th century

• Inmates housed where every

movement is observed by

watchtower

• Foucault – disciplinary power

exercised by individuals

•https://youtu.be/WnD216zoDng

•Self-policing

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REALITY TELEVISION

•Some types of reality TV

• Crime, intimacy, lifestyle

• Media as judge

• Phelan – panopticon applied to

television

• TV producer as guard,

television viewer (us) as prisoner

• Big Brother and panopticon (see

editing of reality television)

• New technologies – superpanopticon

(Mark Poster)

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The gaze and self regulation

Surveillance society (see Britain is surveillance

society)

◦ Gets individuals to monitor their own behaviour

◦ Surveillance ingrained in contemporary life

Self regulation at the heart of Enlightenment

Kant

◦ Morally acceptable

Foucault

◦ Other means of monitoring e.g. records, census etc.

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SUPERPANOPTICON

• Information compiled into profiles

• It is possible to have a record of everything

• Information accessible

• We participate willingly

• Total surveillance

• Mass surveillance society

• But agency is possible (e.g. Jack Dee Celeb Big Brother)

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Surveillance Studies

Foucault – panopticon is about the design of

institutions

Deluze – networks of expanding surveillance

systems, mechanics, policies, techniques

Bentham – tower is at the centre of

surveillance

Foucault – prisoners at the centre of

panopticon

Deluze – act of watching/being watched is in

flux

◦ Set of relationships which are fluid/flux

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Media

Media gaze – being watched

Reality television as panoptic

subject

◦part of networked identity

including through technology

Images used for conditioning

our behaviour

Control imposed on watchers

and watched

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Mathiesen and the Synoptic

Panopticon = few (those looking) survey the many (those being looked at)

Synopticon = the many (the lookers) survey the

few (the looked at).

E.g. 24 hour news cycle, internet etc.

But may be a representation of the real

Where does power lie?

Contemporary cities - prison like through

surveillance.

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Essay titles

Surveillance – looking at a programme or

programmes in relation to:-

◦ Self-surveillance

◦ Panopticon ideas and surveillance – (e.g.

reality TV and values)

◦ Synopticon (e.g. documentary about

government etc.)

◦ Panopticon e.g. Smart TVs and surveillance.

◦ Digital television and the panoptic

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Previous years essays

Elements of surveillance/panopticon in

Judge Judy.

Can Surveillance/panopticon ideas be

applied to Orange is the New Black?

Analysis of GPs Behind closed doors in

relation to surveillance and panopticon.

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Key ideas

Media in relation to self surveillance – similar to the Panopticon

Reality television providing us with norms to monitor our behaviour

Not just media – part of surveillance society (Superpanopticon)

Where the images are part of control in relation to surveillance

We judge and are judged

The image has overtaken the structure (or architecture as Bentham first wrote about)

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References

Barker, C. (2008) Cultural Studies, London, Sage.

Durham, M. & Kellner, D. (2001) Media and Cultural Studies

Keyworks. Oxford, Blackwell.

Fetveit, A. (2004) Reality TV in the Digital Era In R. Allen

and A. Hill (eds.) The Television Studies Reader, London,

Routledge.

Rabinow, P. (ed.) (1991) The Foucault Reader. London,

Penguin.

Wong, J. (2001) Here’s looking at you: reality TV, Big

Brother and Foucault. Canadian Journal of Communication,

26(4), pp.489-501.

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