Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 200-300 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.
Modern society has been under constant change and will always continue to change as long as we permit it too. The main way that this has been in effect is due to Panopticism. Panopticism is a apart of every day life, a simple way of describing Panopticism would be 'a power which is constantly visible but never verifiable'. This is something which showed the change over from physical control over its patients to then a mental control which proved alot stronger and allowed a much greater return in progress of time that was needed to change the behaviour to what was needed.
A modern day Panoptic technique in which we are all judged upon (especially in the younger generation) would be online social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, everything that you post and all the actions that you perform on these sites are judged people judge you upon these actions. Every time that you post anything or upload a picture you are being monitored and this then makes you self consciously act in the way that you think is expected and is also acceptable for society.
You can try to prevent the Panopticism from happening however this deems near impossible in our modern world due to the way in which things have been put in placed now, On Facebook and Twitter you are able to prevent people who are not your friends to see what you are up to, this is a way in which we can monitor our own privacy yet this can only allow us to do so much. Normally aswell people do not consider these settings to even be there and presume that they have been already put into action. they would be wrong.
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