Constructing the other - Portfolio Task 7

Compile an annotated photo essay that analyses the visual and linguistic construction of a specific other within a magazine, journal, periodical or newspaper of your choice. You could focus on gender, race, class, sexuality, fashion, etc but make sure that you comment on how the construction of such an 'other' secures and stabilises the identity, and sense of self, of the publication's core audience.

'New!' is aimed at women roughly age 18- 30. 'New!' is a celeb gossip magazine with fashion and bizarre true life stories. The magazine is set out in bright boxes The magazine is cheap and aimed at people earning a normal/average amount as there are pages that show what celebs wear and where you can get a similar thing on the high street cheap.

The magazine as I have said, is full of celebs and is extremely judgemental. It tells us what 'New!' thinks is and isn't right, for example this page above rates outfits of celebs at the brit awards. Also again all the celebs are really skinny making us feel that we could never be this glamourous unless we looked like them. The only time there are bigger celebs in the mag is when there showing how much weight they've lost (and they're congratulated) or they've been photographed looking big and then the magazine makes fun of them.

Articles like the one below are common as well these kind of articles make people feel like celebs have normal lives too with the same problems readers could have (identifies with the reader).

11/02/11

IDENTITY AND THE OTHER

-Creation of identities

-Concepts of otherness

-Analysis of visual example

-Who we are/ how others percieve us/ themselves

-What makes you, you? (identity creation)

-Brought up

-Where you grew up/ subjectivity (relationship to the world and other people)

-Culture- society/ religion

-Western subjectivities

-Subcultures

-Education (different education, different effect)

-Job

-How do you express this/ your identity?

-Fashion/ clothes- individual/ conformity

-Music

-Attitude (how you treat people)

-Profession

-Speech (way you speak-bbc english/ slang/ Queens english

-Identity not chosen by us or other people/ fight against world (Battleground)

-Circuit of culture- stuart hall- important theorist/ created cultural studies

-Culture = framework which we are trapped in

-Production= what you make

-Representation= sterotypes e.g. that students are drunken hooligans

-Consumption- food, clothes, ferrai

-Regulation- regulate yourself/ conform/ act/ talk to others/ what society allows you to be

-In some countries being gay is illegal

-Identity formation

-Jacques Lacan-process form pyschoanalysis

-Hommelette- person scrambled up

-Mirror stage- 6-18 months

-Sense of self (subjectivity)

Built on:

-an illusion of wholeness

-recieving views of others = own subjectivity to be fragile

-Sterotype others- Constructing the 'other'

-Policeman-bad, me good

-Subject- objectify others/ take away subjectivity/ humanity

-Identify with other group to secure our own identity

-Social constructionism

Sustainability & Capitalism- Portfolio Task 6

Read the text- Balser, E (2008) 'Capital Accumulation, Sustainability & Hamilton Ontario'. Write a 500 word critical summary of the text which explicitly adresses the following questions:

-How is sustainability defined in the text?

In Balser's article, sustainability is described as a response to our environmental crisis. It is defined as 'the inter- and intra- generational equity in the social, environmental, economic, moral and political spheres of society', which means the current and future generations ownership/responsibility of the world. It is supposed to be a communal concept, but due to cost and technology, this is not available to everyone, and poor places suffer because of this

-What are the main characteristics or tendencies of Capitalism?

-Capitalism is always looking to commodify things (a good for which there is demand).

-Constantly expanding

-Diverse web, traps thing creating crisis's.

-Define a 'crisis of Capitalism'. Offer an example.

A crisis of capitalism shows 'a passage which is a turning point in every systematic cycle of accumulation'. An example of a capitalism crisis is the BIOX plant in Ontario, which is a plant for bio-diesel 'clean' fuel which is a good thing the problem is its expensive, not only can't poorer people buy it but its afftecting the poor people that live in its area in a health and safety aspect aswell. Its built on a community green, opposite residential homes.

-What solutions have been offered to the sustainability question? Are these successful or realistic?-If not why are they flawed?

-reinvention of sustainability

-not about salvation of nature

-prolonging human life

Businesses need to:

-radically increase productivity of resource use

-biology inspired production

-no waste/ toxicity

-services rather than making and selling

-reinvest in natural + human capital

-Is the concept of sustainability compatible with capitalism?

I'm not sure if they could ever be completely compatible with each other. I think they will try but in the end both want different things (same things/ different outcomes). Capitalism wants money, sustainability wants to preserve the planet.

Lefebvre & Space - Portfolio Task 5

In 300-400 words, use Lefebvre's Spatial Triad (above) to conduct a critical reading of one social space in or around Leeds.

Leeds Train Station is the busiest social space I could think of in Leeds. Everyday thousands of people commute to or through Leeds. In 2008/9, Leeds was the busiest railway station in the North of England and the third busiest in the United Kingdom outside London, after Birmingham New Street and Glasgow Central. According to Network Rail, which manages the station, over 36.8 million people use the station annually.

In Lefebvre's Spatial Triad, he refers to 'Representations of Space' about basically how the place is set out. Like I have said the train station is very busy a lot of the time so there is a lot of space, with shops around the edge and cash machines on the walls. So people can easily get through the station but could stop at a shop to get lunch for work for example. There is also a pub and a Wetherspoons as the train station is a good place to meet people (especially if you have come in on different trains) also a good place to start a night out. There are 3 or 4 rows of benches in the main building with more on the different platforms, so that you don't have to stand to wait for your train. I'm guessing the plans for the train station were like they were for function and practicality. People get to Leeds and then get connecting trains, so the shops like WHSmiths are widely known and can get magazines and sweets/food for your journey. Also there are a few fast food shops which works with people coming and going so fast, or waiting around as well.

Lefebvre also mentions 'Practice' in relation to the space this is the places daily routine and urban reality. As I have said hundreds of people pass through the station everyday. Some of these people its an everyday routine where as some people just to visit Leeds. This also links to the 'Representational space' people meeting other people, friends + family on holiday or coming home from holiday. Some people it will be a place that sparks memories where as to others it will just be 'some place' they pass through everyday.

28/01/11

SIGHT/SITE (SOCIAL SPACE)

-Urban space/hidden power structures

-Anti-war protest-London

-In all urban spaces mechanisms of control/power

-Hausmanisation- to stop crime/ to segregate/control/power

-Power by state

-Adverts/billboards change how feel/act/

-Business control- spend/ consumption

-Dog whistle for chavs-shops

-Crossings/traffic lights

-John Berger- Single point perspective (way of representing space)

e.g. lighthouse-instead of light going in/coming out (appearances)

-Arrogance/god like power/world=stage for us/viewer as central object

-One way situation/panopticism= one all seeing eye

-Understanding is limited + inhibited by our own vision (flawed)

-UN=see themselves in charge of world

-Jemima Stehli-'strip'-giving critic choice of when to take photo

-Power/ illusion of power

-Forces to see person gazing back / awkward

-Critics control art

-Transgression as a result of space; response to limits- Vito Acconci (1969)

-Henri Lefebvre (1905-1991)

-Dirty Protest (1977-8)

-French intellectual, Marxist , sociologist

-Maze prison belfast

-Revolution via everyday life

-Influenced the situationist (challenged the hidden power structures) 1950's, 60's

-Guy Debord

-Theorist of radial movements

-Spatillisation- creative + function of space

-Conventions of space- act in the space how you would think to act in space

-Action/ presence/ discourse= controlled

-Creates opportunity for resistance/ possibility of rebellion

-Signs/illusions of control/ can ignore

-women- think they're meant to look a certain way/ don't have to

-View from above-doing solution

Lecture 6

THE MEDIA, GLOBALISATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

-Socialist- process of transformation of local/regional phenomena into global ones.

-Described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together.

-Process=combination of economic/technological/sociocultural and political forces.

-Capitalist- elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders

-McDonaldization - mc donalds dominating society

-Manfred B. Steger, Globalization: A very Short Introduction

-Marshall McLuchan

-Global village thesis

-Centripetal forces (good) vs. Centrifugal forces (bad)

-New cold war-loss of faith in the secular nationstate

Religious Nationalism

self-society- Communal

knowledge- Faith

religion- Church/state joined

politics- authoritarian, personal

economy- local capitalism/ socialism

Globalisation

self-society- Unit in global market

knowledge- Media

religion- Religion irrelevant

politics- Superpower (US) & transnational agencies e.g. WTO, UN

economy- Transnational corporate

-Problems of globalisation:

1)sovereignty

2)accountability

3)identity

-Cultural Imperialism

-Schiller

-Chomsky (key thinkers)

-owenership

-sourcing

-funding

-Flak

-Anti- ideologies

-An inconvenient truth (2006) Al Gore

-Flat earthers

-Sustainability \

- Greenwashing

-G20 Summit

Essay Ideas - Portfolio Task 4

Propose a topic and a working title for your Level 5 essays. Your proposal should include:

-5 bullet points explaining the main thrust of your argument

-Your chosen methodical approach

-At least 5 texts (referenced using Harvard) that you think will be useful for this essay, with a comment next to each explaining why

-A j.peg of an image that you may/could discuss in the essay, again, briefly stating why

For my essay I have chosen the topic of the gaze and psychoanalysis as it interest me the most and i want to find out more about it. I also wanted to link these to today and how this affects women. Therefore my question I have come up with I got by using a quote on the gaze and psychoanalysis handout from the lecture. My title is:

'Women exist as 'sexual' objects only to be looked at.' Does this statement apply to modern media?

In my essay i will look at how women were perceived in the past (through paintings/pinnups) how this changed and then how it has changed back again, now in modern media. Who is driving this change, male or female? I am also looking at quite a few theorists to back up what I am saying. My plan for the essay is to go through each of my theorists first, John Berger, Laura Mulvey and Rosalind Coward, then to apply this theory to examples (analysing in depth), then my conclusion.

Texts I am going to use:

-Berger, J (2008) Ways of Seeing, 2nd Edition, London: Penguin Books Ltd.

I'm using this book as one of the essays in it is very appropriate. It talks a lot about how women are represented in paintings. Berger believes that the western world objectifies the nude women and how these ideals have been carried on into todays society.

-Mulvey, L, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford UP: p.833-44

This text carries on fluidly from Berger as Mulvey talks about these ideals in todays society, in modern media, with the male as the observer and the female as the object.

-Coward, R, (1985) Female Desire and Sexual Identity, In: Diaz-Diocartz, M & Zavala, Women Feminist Identity and Society in the 1980's. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, pp.25-36

Coward talks here, about desire and how we as humans are driven by pleasure. Desire is driven by pleasure and the constant promise of perfection. Coward looks at how this affects women

-Walter, N (2010) Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, London: Virago press.

This is a book that I found in the library at college, the title dragged me to it at first and whilst I had the book out I couldn't put it down. Really interesting view on how men aren't driving this way of seeing women but women are. Contains some interviews with women that are looked at for a living, about how they got into what they do and why they do it.

-Miriam O'Reilly wins Countryfile ageism claim, BBC NEWS: Entertainment & Arts [online] Available at:

This article is really interesting as my essay question is 'Women exist as sexual object only to be looked at' Does this statement apply to modern media? and this pretty much proves it as O'Reilly was fired for being too old and as when the program went in to HD you'd be able to see her wrinkles apparently.

An image you could discuss:

As I am looking at the gaze as well, an image that I could talk about is Degas' painting Le Viol (The Rape) (1869). This painting shows the intra-diagetic gaze, which means another person in an image looking at another person in the image. In this painting the man looks across the room at the young girl the way she is facing and is stood shows that she hasn't noticed him stood there. The painting makes you feel bad as you know what is going to happen but you don't feel guilty, as you're not doing anything wrong as the viewer.

Lecture 5

9/12/10

REALITY, VIRTUALITY & HYPERREALITY

-Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007)

-Plato-alergy of the cave

-Teaches us a lesson on how we react with the world/ Ignorance is bliss

-Only know shadow/1 dimensional view of cave

-Only see what were shown/close minded e.g. how wars are portrayed

-Baudrillard

-Hyperreality - inception/coca cola ads

-Coca-cola ad- Santa in red

-Before this santa was portrayed wearing green 1930's Haddon Sundblom

-Santa doesn't exist!!!!!!!!!!

-'Cognitive illustration'

-Think you know stuff because of label (in test cola and pepsi taste same, without label tastesa same)

-Like emotions, you THINK you're in love, just copying images in films. Can't access real emotion just copy/think we are

-Post-structuralism

-Structuralism

-Georges Baille

-Guy Debord- images of the world, rather than world

-Update of Marx for consumer age

-Systems of Objects (1968)

Marx

commidity

-use value

-exchange value

Baudrillard

commodity

-use value

-exchange value

-sign value

-Baudrillard- simulacra are copies of reality, either

of the thing they are intended to represent or are merely copies of other copies

-Simulacrum- key term in post modern theory & culture

-Baudrillards book: SIMULACRA & SIMULATIONfeatures in the Matrix films

-Desert of the real

-Second order simulacra- so similar it confuses/gone so far we thin copy is real/real for us

ROBOTS:

1st order simulacra:

2nd order simulacra:

-Disney=Hyper-reality

-People say castle in prague is 'just like disneyland!' this is backwards

-Disney based on castle not other way round

-Same with Christkindlmarkt, Leeds

-Reality tv... not real its hyperreal

Semiotic Analysis - Portfolio Task 3

Write a 300-400 word semiotic analysis of this Sun front cover. Make sure that your analysis highlights all of the key signifiers, and what they denote and connote. Also, try to highlight any examples of myth that you can see- what ideologies or cultural prejudices are naturalised by the text?. Also, pay attention to paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures and suggest how these shape our reading. Try to outline who the text is trying to communicate, and what cultural codes it relies on to do this. Pay attention to the interrelation of text and image. Pay close attention to the language used in both headline and text.

This newspaper is aimed at the working class, which you can tell by the price of the paper (14p then which would be about 5p now) and the way its written. When you first look at this Sun front cover your eyes are automatically drawn to the title 'GOTCHA' and then to the images of the ships. 'Gotcha' is a word associated with child play (e.g. games of tig), which straight away takes away the seriousness of the situation like the war is a game which england is winning. The images of the ships are meaningless without the text as Barthes said. The text that catches your eye under the text are short and simple, the words, 'sunk' and 'crippled', these word combined witht the images make the reader feel like our country is victorious and strong. The childlike way of talking continues into the text with shortening of''Argentinians' to 'Argies'. This is a derogatory term and to see it used in a newspaper is quite shocking nowadays. This made the reader feel that 'Argies' was the correct term to use in referring to 'Argentinians' and there was nothing wrong with it.
Also now looking at the other article on this page you can see how they differ. The main article, like I have said is written childishly about us having a lead in the war the article does not let us think about the seriousness of the situation. The second article 'Union boycotts war' is written as if this matter is more serious matter, yet in comparison its not.

Lecture 4

25/11/2010
COMMUNICATION THEORY

-'Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect?' -Lasswell's Maxim
-Traditions of communication theory
-Multiple theories/ 7 traditions
-Transmissional (informational)
-Cybernetic/information theory
-Constitutive (process of production/reproduction of shared meaning)
-Semiotics
-Phenomenological tradition
-Rhetorical
-Socio-psychological
-Socio-cultural
-Critical theory
-Cybernetic/Information theory-Shannon& weaver bell labortories 1949
-Potential communication problems:
-level 1-technical (systems, accuracy)
-level 2- semantic (presision of language)
-level 3- effectiveness (does message affect behavior)
-Systems theory
-BARB (broadcasters' audience research board)
-Semiotics- semantics, syntactics, pragmatics
-Semiotics examine signs as if they are a language
-Culturally shared codes
-Semiotics- how we make meaning in any given situation/how art/design is read within that situation
-Phenomenological Tradition- process of knowing through direct experience
-Embodied minds- communication seen as extention of nervous system
-Process of interpretation is central
-Rhetoric- hyperbole, irony, personification
-Rhetoric can be used to change the way we ‘read’ things. It persuades us to see or read things differently. Because most of the information we receive is ambiguous we can easily be persuaded to read it as others do. Rhetoric relies on communication as a social activity and is a device that is designed to help individuals exert the power of their ideas and views over others

Lecture 3

18/11/10

FILM THEORY, 'THE GAZE' & PSYCHOANALYSIS

-Psychoanalysis - way of thinking linke

d to psychology + psychiatry

-Laura Mulvey- (Film writer informed by both feninism and psychoanalysis. Most famous work 'Visual pleasures and narrative cinema' (1975) later turned into a longer book of the same name. Some key points developed by Mulvey:

- Hollywood film is sexist in that it represents the gaze as powerful and male/ heros typically male and drive the plot/ women in film exist as 'sexual' objects to be 'looked at'.

-Scopophilia- pleasure of looking at others' bodies as objects '...at the extreme [scopophilia] can become fixated into a perversion, producing obsessive voyeurs and Peeping Toms whose only sexual satisfaction can come from watching, in an active controlling sense, an objectified other.'

-Narcissistic Identification- Identify with male character. 'The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking, but it also goes fu

rther, developing scopophilia in its narcissistic aspect.'

-Mirror Stage- 'The moment when a child recognises their own mirror-image as a project perfected model of 'ego'. Film (like its similarity with the mirror) produces a fascinationin the image that can itself, induce a loss of ego. In our increasing identification with a projected 'ego', our own sense of ego becomes lost..' Projection of 'ideal ego' comic book guy in the simpsons thinks he's radioactive man.

-Suture- spectators look through eyes of the actors in the film

-We are able to follow 'their' gaze without feeling guilty

-Suture can be broken e.g., when an actor speaks out to us

-When broken, the audience are aware of their own gaze

-Possibility then, to make the spectator feel guilty

-Jacques Lacan- Famous french psychoanalyst, particularly influential on art history and theory.

-Different types of the 'gaze'- spectator's gaze, intra diagetic gaze, extra diagetic gaze, suture

-Le Viol - Degas

-A bar at folies-bergere- Manet

-Duchamp- Etant Donnes (1946-1966) being given power of the gaze

-Peeping Tom

Summary of: Adorno's 'On Popular Music' - Portfolio Task 2

Quickley read Adorno's (1941) article 'On Popular Music'. In no more than a few paragraphs summarise his ideas on pop music, concentrating on highlighting key points such as 'standardisation.

Adorno believes that there are 'two spheres of music'. He calls these, serious and popular music. In this article, Adorno talks about the differences between the two. He talks about 'standardisation', how all popular music is the same. It repeatedly uses the same subjects and the same rules.

In comparison, he says that every detail of a serious piece of music is unique, if notes were missing the music would not be the same. Unlike popular music where, 'every detail is substitutable; it serves its function only as a cog in a machine' (Adorno, On Popular Music, 1941). Therefore, to listen to this music you don't need to think or be engaged.

As all popular music is 'standardised', the listener has the same reaction to all songs in a particular genre, regardless of the song, lyrics or artist. Because they all sound the same, it makes popular music easy to sell. The costumer doesn't have to think, they know they like that type of music, so they buy it.

Post a link to a Youtube pop video that, in your opinion, epitomises Adorno's sentiments. Explain why, trying to emphasise the links to the wider 'culture industry' in general.

Taylor Swift- Love Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xg3vE8Ie_E&feature=artistob&playnext=1&list=TLSbx3q4AW0JI

This is a good example of popular music. The song is 'standardised' and the story and characters of the song can be seen in countless others. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they get together in the end (happy ending). The song has about 7 versus and a chorus that is repeated until the last one where its slightly different. These 'standardised' songs follow the same rules and patterns so even though you may of only heard it once, you instantly recognise it and like it.

This song plays on every girls dream/fairytale of falling in love and living happily ever after. Makes us feel like this is what we should aim for/have, '..their response to music immediately expresses their desire to obey' (Adorno, On Popular Music, 1941). Adorno believes that listening to this sort of music is an escapism and that this 'sentimental music lies rather in the temporary release given to the awareness that one has missed fulfillment' (Adorno, On Popular Music, 1941)

Lecture 2

11/11/10

CRITICAL POSITIONS ON THE MEDIA AND POPULAR CULTURE

-What is culture? complicated

word in our language to define

-Definition- general process of spiritual and aesthetic development of a particular society at a particular time.

-Particular way of life

-Works of intellectual and especially artistic significance

- Marx's concept of Base / Superstructure (communist manifesto)

-Base -Determine content + form of- Superstructure

-Superstructure -Reflects form of + legitimizes- Base

-Ideology - 1) system of ideas/b

eliefs, 2) distortion/selection of ideas (propaganda)

-Pyramid of Capitalist system

Bourgeoisie/Bourgois - working class

-Marx 'ruling class controls/ dominates culture'

-Definitions - 'popular'

-Well liked by many

-Inferior kinds of work (mass not kitch)

-Work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people

-Culture actually made for people for themselves: made by people for people

-High culture- famous painting, popular culture-making copies, paint by numbers

-High culture-Banksy piece, Popular culture-Graffitti

-Industrialisation brought separation of class.

-Traditional vs. Popular culture

-Culture and anarchy, Matthew Arnold (1867)

-Culture-study of perfection

-"best that has been thought and said in the world"

-pursuit of culture

-seeks "to minister the diseased spirit of our time"

-Culture polices 'the raw and uncultivated masses'

-Uncultured should strive to be like cultured not create their own culture

-Arnoldism

-F.R. Leavis + Q.D. Leavis = Leavisism

-20th Century sees cultural deadline

-Collapse of traditional authority comes at the same time as mass democracy

-Popular culture-books, films, advertising

-Frankfurt school- Critical Theory, institute social research, uni of frankfurt, 1923-33

-Rise of national socialism

-New York 1933-47

-Adorno, Horkheimer, reinterpreted Marx for 20th C (late capitalism)

-All mass culture is identical

-Homogeneity + Predictability

-Conformity not anarchy

-Herbert Marcuse, Depoliticises working class

-Che Guevar t shirt

- X Factor/Big Brother= way to success is join in gameshow instead of education

-Authentic (real, european) culture vs. mass culture

-Multidimensional

-Imagination, Autonomous

-Adorno 'On popular music'

-Walter Benjamin-Work of art of mechanical reproduction (1936)

-Concept of 'aura'

-Mona Lisa - dont know what it means socially but we know its important

-Challenges high culture, when appears on t shirts books plates

-Birmingham school

Contextual & Theoretical Studies Year 2 - Lecture 1

4/11/2010

PANOPTICISM - SURVEILLANCE AND SOCIETY

- The Panopticon- Jere

my Benthams 1791

- Michael Foucault (1926-198

4)

Madness & Civilisation (book by Foucault)

- Village idiot's used to be laughed/with not outcasts, late 1600's this changed..

- 'Houses of correction' - to curb unemployment + idleness, criminals

This didn't work and the criminals affected the non criminals and so on

- Birth of the Asylum - patients split up so cant influence one another

- The emergance of knowledge/ Doctors + Physciatrists seen as 'gods'

- End of the pillory/ guillotine/ hung drawn and quartered, not physical punishment anymore, now modern discipline, keep u

s under

survallience, improve ourselves

- Millbank prison (modern prison) opposite of dungens where the person is shut away/hidden/forgotten

- Panopticon - always being watched/reforms them/ self regulation through fear of being watched

- No panoptic prisons any more as see

n as torture

- Modern panopticism = open plan offices / The office

- Factories with balconys

- Security cameras

- Google streets/ strange things on here car on fire

- Pentonville prison

- Brotherton Library

- CCTV panoptic gaze

- Archive of looked at websites, emails on computers

- Guy arrested for terrorist activity from his list of website history

- Docile bodies - easy to control/ controllable to surveyor/ self monitoring

- Gym is panoptic

- TV - very panoptic

- "Where there is power, there is resistance" Foucault

- Resistance vs. submission

- Men watch women, women watch themselves being looked at.

- Facebook - EXTREMELY panoptic

- Bruce Nauman (1960's) video corridor pieces

- Art gallery = Institution

- Chris Burden - Samson (1985)

Contextual & Theoretical Studies Portfolio (Vis Com Year 2 Task 1)

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 100-200 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.

Mobile Phones

Mobile phones are a modern day example of Bentham’s Panopticon. The Panopticon was a circular prison where the prisoners in cells around the building were constantly observed by guards in the central tower, which is a complete opposite of the dungeons, which were “to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p64). The prison was based on the theory of Panopticism founded by Michael Foucault.

Mobile phones are a perfect example of this, as we know that they can be tracked by the battery and sim card also that certain words that we say or type can be flagged up and recorded. The trackers e.g. satellites are “visible and unverifiable” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p65), meaning that we can see the satellites in spaces in photos or the Internet, yet you never know for sure if your being looked at or not.

Because we never know if we are being watched or not, we, ourselves, monitor what we say, and what words we use and therefore the person becomes “the principle of his own subjection” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p66). Instead of, for example people being punished for committing terrorism acts, the acts can be prevented as the satellite or the police can “..act even before the offences, mistakes or crimes have been committed.” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p68)

“Visibility is a trap” (Foucault in Thomas, 2000, p64), which creates a fear of being watched, this produces docile bodies, making people easy to control.

Bibliography

-'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.