Democracy is watching you: from panopticism to the Security State

• Main Author: Prior, Hélder Rocha
• Publication Date: 2015
• Format: Article
• Language: eng
• Source: Revista FAMECOS: Mídia cultura e tecnologia
• Download full: https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/ojs/index.php/revistafamecos/article/view/17789
• topic: Surveillance Society; Panopticon; BioPower; Surveillance Studies; Sociedad de la vigilancia; Panóptico; Biopoder; Sociedad de la vigilancia; Sociedade da vigilância; Panóptico; Biopoder; Sociedade da vigilância

The essay that the reader is holding in his hands is an attempt to understand the extent to which, in the present-day, we are watching the return of a visibility, exposure and surveillance system that a utilitarian author like Jeremy Bentham baptized of Panopticon, or “place where everything is seen”. In fact, the pinnacle of the “information society”, and the present scenario of widespread surveillance intensified by the establishment of Security State post- September 11th, has implications in the practices of control over individuals on a daily basis, what Deleuze calls “societies of control” at the same time it contributes to the frontiers dilution between the public sphere and the private sphere. In this sense, we consider it is important to do a review on “disciplinary societies” surveillance and the control of “biopower” theorized by Michel Foucault to subsequently realize how new surveillance technologies increase, exponentially, the subjects’ transparency.