Topic -Surveillance Flashcards
1
Q
what are examples of sophisticated technology used in surveillance today?
A
- CCTV cameras,
- biometric scanning,
- automated number plate recognition,
- electronic tagging
- databases
2
Q
what sociologist identified 2 types of power and what are they?
A
- foucault
- sovereign power
- disciplinary power
3
Q
what is sovereign power?
A
- This was typical before the 19th century,
- monarch had absolute power over people and their bodies.
- Control was asserted by inflicting disfiguring, visible punishment on the body.
- Punishment was brutal, emotional spectacle such as public execution.
4
Q
what is disciplinary power?
A
- This became dominant from the 19th century.
- In this form of control, a new system of discipline seeks to govern not just the body, but the mind or ‘soul’.
- It does so through surveillance.
5
Q
why does foucault reject the liberal view about bodily punishment and what are the 2 views?
A
- liberal view- societies became more civilised or humane.
- foucault- disciplinary power replaced sovereign power simply because surveillance is a more efficient ‘technology of power’
6
Q
what is an example of disciplinary power in prisons?
A
panopticons
7
Q
what is a panoptican?
A
- This was a design for a prison in which each prisoner in his/her own cell is visible to the guards from a central watchtower, but the guards are not visible to the prisoners.
- Thus the prisoners don’t know if they are being watched, but they do know that they might be being watched.
- As a result, they have to behave at all times as if they were being watched, and so the surveillance turns into self-surveillance and discipline becomes self-discipline.
8
Q
how is the principle of the panoptican used today?
A
- The use of CCTV cameras. The UK is one of the most policed countries in terms of the high number of CCTV cameras.
- Members of society assume they are being watched by CCTV and therefore behave in an orderly manner.
9
Q
explain the dispersal of discipline
A
- Foucault argues that the prison is just one of a range of institutions that, from the 19th century, increasingly began to subject individuals to disciplinary power to induce conformity through self-surveillance.
- These include mental asylums, barracks, factories, workhouses and schools.
10
Q
give 4 evaluations of foucault
A
- Foucault also exaggerates the extent of control. E.g. Goffman shows how some inmates of prisons and mental hospitals are able to resist controls.
- CCTV cameras are a form of panopticon – we are aware of their presence but unsure whether they are recording us. However they are not necessarily effective in preventing crime, they could just displace it.
- It may be that CCTV falsely reassures the public about their security, even though it makes little difference to their risk of victimisation.
- Feminists such as Koskela also criticise CCTV as an extension of the ‘male gaze’. While it renders women more visible to the voyeurism (sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in personal behaviours) of the male camera operator, it does not make them more secure.
11
Q
what did bauman and lyon say about surveillance?
A
- there is liquid surveillance
12
Q
what is liquid surveillance?
A
- society is so fluid that we are in a liquid phase
- today people find their movements monitored and tracked.
13
Q
give 4 surveillance theories since foucault
A
- synoptic surveillance
- surveillant assemblages
- actuarial justice and risk management
- labelling and surveillance
14
Q
what is synoptic surveillance?
A
- mathiesen argues that the media allows many to see the few
- panoptican allows few to see the many
15
Q
what is surveillant assemblages?
A
- abstracting human bodies from their territorial settings, and separating them into a series of discrete flows
- e.g cctv can be combined with facial recognition
