Session 20: 15 March Networked New Media: Controlling the Flow of Culture From Above

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1 Session 20: 15 March Networked New Media: Controlling the Flow of Culture From Above Steven Shaviro, From Surveillance to Control to Sic Semper Tyrannis In Connected, or What It Means to Live in a Network Society, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003 pp John Hartley, Digital/Analogue Distribution, pp Barry M. Leiner, Vint Cerf, et. al. A Brief History of the Internet The major effect of the panopticon was to induce on the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assured the automatic functioning of power. (Foucault) People have to wake up to the fact that there isn t any anonymous usage of communication services. They have to get over that. Megacorporations monopolize the flow of information. (Steven Shaviro) Check out this amazing example of networked participatory culture: Also, be sure to listen to the CBC Search Engine podcast on the new documentary RIP: A Remix Manifesto One of the basic points of the Shaviro reading is that if everything is connected then nothing is exempted from surveillance But is surveillance the most pressing issue in our network society? What about the role of information in relation to capitalist markets Capitalist markets (corporations) are not interested in spying on you, other than to gather information that can be used for profit Capitalist markets not only demand that information be a commodity, they depend upon it for continued growth and profits

2 Virtually everything can be digitally converted into information which flows through capitalist networks [Corporations] are compiling records about every aspect of your life: what Web sites you visit, what items you buy, what music you listen to, how many children you have. They are converting the very fabric of everyday life into a series of protected trademarks. And they are patenting and marketing the genes of plants and wildlife whose beneficial properties are known to indigenous peoples and sometimes even the genes of the indigenous people themselves. (Shaviro) So it is not that surveillance is not an issue. Rather, it is that to solely focus on issues of privacy or censorship is to ignore more serious issues. Namely, who controls the flow of information? Thus we need to think about how power functions differently in a society characterized by networks and the flow of information Key Themes and Concepts 1) The Panopticon and Disciplinary Power 2) Networks and the Society of Control 3) From surveillance to sousveillance 1) The Panopticon and Disciplinary Power Panoptic power is a concept developed by Michel Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish For Foucault the panopticon is an exemplar of disciplinary power a dominant form of power in modernity especially form the Industrial Revolution (19 th to mid-20 th c.) [The Panopticon is an] instrument of permanent, exhaustive, omnipresent surveillance, capable of making visible, as long as it could itself remain invisible a faceless gaze that transformed the whole social body into a field of perception. (Foucault) Foucault borrows the concept of the panopticon from Jeremy Bentham, a political economist from the turn of the 19 th c. originator of liberal economic theory which was transformed in the 20th c. into Neoliberal economic theory

3 Bentham and the Panopticon (L)The stuffed corpse of Jeremy Bentham on display at London School of Economics; (R) Bentham s actual preserved skull Bentham conceived of a perfect prison as a means to address social issues Morals reformed - health preserved - industry invigorated - instruction diffused - public burdens lightened - Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock - the Gordian knot of the poor-law not cut, but untied - all by a simple idea in Architecture! (Bentham) The Panopticon What is the Panopticon? Bentham s dream was to design the perfect prison it would have a tall central tower permanently in sight this would leave the inmates under constant possible surveillance the gaze of the panopticon sees everything without being seen

4 the disciplined body is always seen without ever seeing The effect of being under permanent possible surveillance is the disciplined body you must assume you are always being watched thus you inscribe those relations of domination on yourself this is meant to ensure an automatic functioning of power The Panopticon takes a disciplinary and punitive approach to social problems Consider how this technology was meant to address social, political, and economic issues i.e. a technological solution addressing an economic problem specifically, to ease the transition to large-scale factory production Think of this in relation to the use of ICTs for the transition to Post- Fordism/Neoliberal globalization Poor Laws : Contextualizing Panoptic power meant to provided relief to the poor in England mostly forced into workhouses the elderly were sometimes given token care through churches The poor were often former peasants enclosure of the commons cleared peasants from the land ended feudalism and facilitated the rise of capitalism created a vast surplus of unemployed labour created beneficial conditions for early capitalists as they could pay workers very little Foucault, the panopticon and disciplinary power Foucault saw the panopticon as an exemplar of all forms of institutional power which he called disciplinary power the prison the factory schools army barracks He classifies that type of power as disciplinary power

5 Key characteristics of disciplinary power are as follows: fixes relations b/n individuals and various institutions power is exercised over an individual to make him/her more adequate to the needs of that institution a disciplinary, individualizing technique of power works directly on the body by keeping it under constant surveillance to insure it conforms to the needs of that given institution [ disciplinary power is] how we surveil someone, control his conduct, his behaviour, his aptitudes, intensify his performance, multiply his capacities, put him in his place where he will be most useful. (Foucault) In disciplinary society, you are always going from one closed site to another, each with its own rules and laws: first of all the family, then school ( you re not at home, you know ), then the barracks ( you re not at school, you know ), then the factory, hospital from time to time, maybe prison, the model site of confinement (Gilles Deleuze) Remember there is no strict chronology to Foucauldian conceptions of power (not temporal) Different kinds of power coexist in dominant, residual, and emergent forms For example, disciplinary power remains with us in the form of Closed-Circuit TVs (CCTVs) their purpose is to prevent crime thru. their presence, not catch the criminal As society becomes more mobile and interconnected, disciplinary power becomes less effective it is too rigid and enclosed The network society is all about interconnectedness; that means multiple links to many different circuits It is more about the flow than the contained institutional space

6 2) Networks and the Society of Control [Foucault] was actually one of the first to say that we re moving away from disciplinary societies, we ve already left them behind. We re moving toward control societies that no longer operate by confining people but through continuous control and instant communication. (Gilles Deleuze) Disciplinary power is rigid, centralized, and discrete (i.e. specific to an institution or place) Our network society is interconnected ad needs more flexible and distributed forms of power The panopticon and disciplinary power function in the discrete spaces of institutions (prisons, schools, factories) Networks allow for rapid forms of free-flowing control which is inherent in distributed networks Disciplinary power analogue temporally and spatially discrete you are always starting over again centralized file of the individual the factory (enclosed w/n four walls) as exemplar organized by threat of punishment Society of Control digital diffused and modulating you never finish anything dispersed data shadows in multiple databases network society (flowing thru. all aspects of everyday life) as exemplar organized by code But remember that Foucault sees different forms of power always co-existing i.e. forms of panoptic power (surveillance) remain in networked formations, however, they are better understood via control society

7 Capitalist control society? Shaviro makes the following provocative claim: The American entertainment industry is well on its way to obtaining a more thorough control over speech and expression that Stalin ever dreamed of. He outlines three steps that corporations follow to exert such control i) Digitalize speech and cultural expression this makes them another commodity to be bought and sold they are easy to trade given their universal medium of exchange (1s and 0s) ii) Privatize digital information and networks private ownership puts cultural expression under contract law notions such as public access or freedom of expression are rendered irrelevant iii) Information is always somebody s property you have no intrinsic right to information access to information is gained by paying for it In our network society, information is like air but it is subject to unprecedented private control Is this good for democracy or culture? Sousveillance 3) From surveillance to sousveillance Surveillance denotes the act of watching from above authorities are doing the watching Sousveillance denotes the practice of watching from a human level watching from below also known as inverse surveillance concept developed Steve Mann (University of Toronto) In short, sousveillance describes the recording of an activity from the perspective of a participant. Mann is calling for what he calls equiveillance a more even split of surveillance and sousveillance in part from wearcomp

8 Surveillance God's eye view from above Cameras mounted on high Architecture-centered (e.g. cameras usually mounted on or in structures) Recordings made by authorities Recordings usually kept in secret Process usually shrouded in secrecy. Panoptic origins Privacy violation may go un-noticed, or un-checked. Tends not to be self-correcting There is no privacy Ubiquitous computing (ubiqcomp) relies on the infrastructure in the environment With surveillant-computing, the locus of control tends to be with the authorities Sousveillance Human's eye view Cameras down at human level Human-centered (e.g. cameras carried or worn by, or on, people) Recordings made by participants Recordings often made public internet, social networks, etc. Process and technology usually public Community-based origins Privacy violation is usually immediately evident. Tends to be self-correcting There is no secrecy Wearable computing (wearcomp) doesn t require infrastructure With sousveillant-computing, it is possible for the locus of control to be more distributed Concepts of surveillance, the panopticon, and sousveillance are not just literal i.e. who is actually watching whom it is about control over and access to the flow of information of everyday life

9 What is at issue are the following: i) surveillance ii) privacy and control of information iii) creative and/or political interventions iv) new forms of cultural-technological networked practices How are you individually and collectively related to the broad flow of information that makes up our historical moment? How does this relate to struggles over the propriety of data and information? How does this relate to the ways in which we produce and share knowledge? For issues around the broader flow of information, please see Michael Geist s blog (University of Ottawa law professor)