“Not just an intensification of surveillance, but the effort to push surveillance to the absolute limit.”
Boggard was referring to modern day society and included all types of surveillance, including the previously discussed and methods of surveillance, which are more recent, including monitoring consumption patterns when using credit or debit cards. When people use credit or debit cards, banks can monitor where, when, time, what they bought, and all this information is logged and stored. Moreover, every time a form is completed, information is given on all aspects of a person’s life, once the form has been completed, the individual can never be clear what happens to the information. Furthermore, in this day of increasing consumerism, where more and more people are using the Internet, websites that have been viewed are stored and then tailor made advertising will appear on screen. The previously mentioned “absolute limit” that Boggard (1996) discussed, is an imaginary line beyond which control operates.
Previous methods that were used to obtain power could range from the barbaric, e.g. the method of punishment as described by Damiens in Foucault’s book (Discipline and Punishment 1975) to the work of Tonnies (first published in 1887) and his work on community. Foucault writes how in contemporary society, power is exercised with punishment, where as, Toennies (1887) discusses the importance of Gemeinschaft, which loosely translated means community. In pre-modernity societies, community and kinship were important to maintain social order.
The use of surveillance systems have been increasing since the 19th Century when police first began patrolling ‘the beat’ (McLaughlin & Munice 2000) in order to reduce crime and in hope of becoming more accessible to the public. Moreover, by making a police presence felt, it could be suggested that this is one of the earliest forms of using surveillance as a system of power. The police are still used as a form of surveillance in the present day; however, this is an accepted form of surveillance and people do not largely see this as a system of power that infringes upon civil liberties and is there legitimatised, whereas, the afore mentioned monitoring of consumption patterns could be seen as hyper-surveillance (Boggard 1996). However, some sociologists (Rose 1989) argue that there has to be coercion within society for these types of surveillance to have effect.
Rose (1989) discusses the way in which systems of social control, such as administration and record keeping, are only maintained by the co-operation of the population, Rose called these processes ‘governing the soul’. Durkheim also argued that social order could only be maintained through a ‘conscience collective.’ Durkheim was writing in the late 19th century, and Rose in the late 80’s, the both agree that power can only be accumulated through the collaboration of population and therefore legitimate. In modern states, surveillance systems are well developed and advanced, and therefore surveillance systems have become to be replied upon in order to retain power, while in Pre-industrial states, surveillance systems are inadequate, consequently, power is maintained through coercion.
In the late 18th century, Jeremy Bentham came up with the idea of a Panopticon; this idea was a prison, where surveillance enforced power. This prison had no bars, but observation was the key to power, the wardens would be able to see every part of the prison, but the prisoners would not be able to see the wardens. Foucault (1975) suggested that the Panopticon worked because
“It induced a state of conscious and permanent visibility that ensures the automatic functioning of power.”
As the prisoners are aware that they are being watched, it is said that their behaviour alters because of this. The Panoptic prison was never developed, however, Foucault does argue that the idea did have an influence on other institutions such as hospital, schools and factories. The Panoptic idea was an idea that social control can be enforced through complete surveillance. Although the Panopticon was never built, Foucault suggests that the idea can still be seen in the way that some building, such as schools; factories and hospitals, are built.
The Growth of surveillance systems has prompted some writers such as G. Orwell (1949) to speculate how far surveillance will go, Orwell wrote in his infamous book Nineteen eighty-four about a society that was continuously watched over and consequently, the nation state knew everything about it’s citizens. This ‘big brother’ society is improbable, but the idea of extreme surveillance would mean the more power that can be exerted.
It is clear that surveillance systems are important in today’s society, in Britain alone, we are using surveillance as a way to keep track of criminals and to save money on sending them to prison. It is now possible to put electronic tags on a person, therefore knowing where that person is at all times.
Modern surveillance systems have been shown to be a relatively new system of power, albeit, previous systems of power did also include surveillance without the technical advancements that have been achieved, some writers (Orwell: 1949) had suggested that a totalitarian approach had been achieved. Modern surveillance system have shown to not always be as effective as we might think, even with the vast amount of technology that is available, surveillance systems have failed. There are still large amounts of benefit fraud and tax evasion remains undetected by the nation state. This shows that although surveillance systems have brought about changes in the way that power is obtained, it not always effective. As discussed previously, power can only be obtained through the agreement of the population, not just through surveillance. It is not possible to avoid surveillance, therefore, as the amount of information about you becomes available, Lyon (1994) would say, this leads to the more power that can be exerted over you. To conclude, it would be easy to consider that modern surveillance systems do indeed represent new systems of power, although, it has been shown that some of these surveillance systems have been know to fail.
Bibliography
Durkheim, E. (1893), The Division of Labor in Society, Glencoe, Free Press
Durkheim, E. (1897), Suicide: A study in sociology, Glencoe, Free Press
Foucault, M. (1975), Discipline and Punish: The birth of prison, London, Tavistock
Giddens, A. (1997): Sociology, Oxford Polity Press.
Lyon, D. (1994): The Electronic Eye: The rise of Surveillance society, Cambridge, Polity Press
McLaughlin, E and Muncie, J (2000): Walled Cities: Surveillance Regulation and Segregation, in Pile, S, Brook, C and Moley, G 2000: Unruly Cities? London,
Orwell, G. (1949). Nineteen eighty-four, London, Secker & Warburg.
Rose, N. (1989), Governing the Soul: The shaping of the private self, London, Routledge
Toennies, F. (1887), Community and Association, Michigan, Michigan Stat University Press
