CCTV
The media is consistently telling us that closed circuit television (CCTV) is in place for our safety and wellbeing. It is there to record anti-social behaviour and therefore catch criminals. However, this “visibility is a trap”. In return for this apparent safety, we pay with our freedom. CCTV is panoptic.
The general public have no way of knowing “the perversity of those who take pleasure in spying and punishing.” There are reports regularly of security personnel using CCTV to spy on people. Clearly this is a power that can be abused.
We know that we can be seen, but we cannot, ourselves, see who is watching us. We are the “object of information, never a subject in communication.” We are always conscious that we are being watched and so we act in a way that we feel in appropriate. One self-regulates. It is this “permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power”
We assume that someone in authority, someone of higher knowledge, is watching us. However, “consequently it does not matter who exercises the power. Any individual, taken almost at random, can operate the machine.” We will never question and only ever assume.
CCTV works to deter one from being unproductive. When used in the workplace “it is a perpetual victory that avoids any physical confrontation”. Workers will work and be useful to society, as they know they are being watched. Our workforce is made up of “docile bodies”. The power of those who watch us need never be exercised, as we become “the principle of [our] own subjection.”
Notes for task:
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