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The theory of the 18th century panopticon prison was meant to impose physical discipline on its prisoners by the perception of an omnipresent gaze from a central tower. The Digital Panopticon feels free of coercion because it lacks a centralized perspective. The camera is for selfies and not surveillance. In the virtual world, we are voluntarily constructing a digital prison whereby we illuminate ourselves and the Other. Our behavioral data is rendered transparent with all of our personal, interpersonal, financial, and therefore social political processes (transactions, relationships, etc.) available to advertisers and governments. We have become warden and inmate of ourselves. The Digital Panopticon is the tool of “psychopolitics”, according to Byung-Chul Han. Freedom and coercion meet as we voluntarily exploit ourselves through the compulsion to self-express and self-present. The power of the virtual world is that it has mediated our internal experience rather than an external agent imposing rules; the compulsion to say an emphatic Yes! to self-exploitation, which feels freely chosen by the user. The inner need to put oneself on display feeds the Digital Panopticon.
References:
Han, B.C. (2017). In the swarm: Digital prospects. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA.
Han, B.C. (2015). The transparency society. Stanford Briefs: Stanford, CA.
Han, B.C. (2018). The expulsion of the other. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
Han, B.C. (2017). Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and new technologies of power. Verso: New York.
Seymour, R. (2019). The twittering machine. London: The Indigo Press.
Han, B.C. (2021). Capitalism and the death drive. Polity Press: Medford, MA.
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