Surveillance and the Internet April 12, 2007
Posted by csfogler in blogging, facebook, foucault, internet, myspace, socialization, surveillance.1 comment so far
Just to continue the discussion about Facebook and MySpace in a slightly different direction, I wanted to comment about how the internet (particularly these kinds of sites) have changed the whole idea of “surveillance.” For these sites, you put up a profile with information about yourself- effectively a representation of yourself as you wish others to see you. The decisions about what information to post- not like birthday, age, screennames, etc, but the more mundane “what movies do I like?” kinds of information- act as a way for us to shape the images we are presenting. We know that other people will look at our profiles. We know that they will judge us for what we have put on them. They will judge our bodies by looking at the photos we upload, they will judge our taste and intellect by seeing who we are friends with, what groups we belong to, and what we have listed as our interests, activities, favorites, etc. As with Foucault’s Panopticon, we know that people are watching us, but we can’t see them watching us. We are aware of the people looking at our profiles/blogs, and we are performing for them, but we don’t really know who they are.
Sometimes there is a false sense of security that only your friends, or people you know “in real life,” are looking. But we wouldn’t really worry about their judgement, nor would we bother to perform this representation of ourselves just for people who know us better anyway. The purpose of a site like Facebook or MySpace is to help “network”- in other words the sites exist so that strangers will spy on (or “stalk”) strangers. The internet has definitely increased the opportunites that “the state” has to surveil us, but it has also and perhaps even more fundamentally changed the forms of societal surveillance. It used to be that the only form of societal surveillance came through direct interaction with someone- you see someone walk down the street and judge them, or meet them in a class. I think that kind of surveillance was less out in the open- we judged others ourselves, but we weren’t necessarily constantly aware of others judging us. Facebook/MySpace/the blog culture have made that feeling of being constantly watched much more prevalent. They have also allowed us to create for ourselves multiple identities- to for the first time really be whoever we want to be. While you can’t really hide the shape of your body, your age, or your gender when walking down the street, you can present yourself as anyone through a profile or a blog. To do that, we have to be aware of who we are and how that is different from who we want to be- and we have to be aware of how others perceive the traits we put forth. We have to, in effect, judge ourselves the way others judge us. By playing into the voyeurism and surveillance of others, we are increasing (or perhaps creating for the first time?) the meaningful surveillance of ourselves.
younger kids and socialization April 12, 2007
Posted by Matt in blogging, facebook, internet, myspace, social, socialization, you tube.add a comment
I just wanted to continue on about something we touched on in class: where are kids turning to socialize today, and why? Socialization, for younger kids, I would venture, largely takes place in the school. As a microcosm of wider society, kids get a sense of the norms, groups, behaviors, symbols etc. that society uses (many of these being linked to cultural products or commodities) and use them to begin to define the place that they occupy in society. But in school and at home, children are constricted and monitored in how (and with who) they are socializing. (Much of this being due to the ‘culture of fear’ in which parents operate today). Unable to go out into a shared space except illicitly, and riskily, young people turn to technology and the social that it enables. (more…)
