Surveilance Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Surveilance - Essay Examplettempts to show how Michel Foucaults notion of surveillance using the panoptic principle is in fact made manifest by the use of video and still cameras. Further, panopticism has been used as themes of various photo exhibits, no doubt inspired by the creeping feeling of being watched.The practice of placing individuals under observation is a natural extension of a justice imbued with disciplinary methods and examination procedures. Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons correspond factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons? (p. 228).In this particular passage, Foucault outlines the mechanisms that the prison uses in controlling criminality. On closer examination, what he in fact outlines are the mechanisms that operate within different affectionate institutions. This is a noteworthy point, since the institutions that he mentioned, i.e. factories, schools, barracks, and hospitals, all function in essentially the same way as the modern prison. These all use specific procedures and techniques to tick subjects. What follows is a discussion of Foucaults notion of discipline as correct training, with its particular mechanisms and techniques.Foucaults book was originally titled in French, Surveiller et punir. The translator, Alan Sheridan, explained at the set-back the difficulty in translating the title itself for various reasons. Apparently, the French surveiller does not have a directly appropriate English counterpart. The term surveillance proved in any case limited, and supervise tended to be understood quite differently from what Foucault originally meant. In the end, Foucault himself chose Discipline and Punish, clarifying in the book that the ter m