Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

I was reading an article on the pervasiveness of modern surveillance technology. While the article itself was mostly about technologies such as CCTV or credit card information, this quote about Michel Foucault’s famous example about the panopticon got me thinking:

What distinguished this structure was an architecture designed to maximize the visibility of inmates who were to be isolated in individual cells such that they were unaware moment-to-moment whether they were being observed by guards in a central tower. More than a simple device for observation, the panopticon worked in conjunction with explicitly articulated behavioural norms as established by the emerging social sciences, in efforts to transform the prisoner’s relation to him or her self. This disciplinary aspect of panoptic observation involves a productive soul training which encourages inmates to reflect upon the minutia of their own behaviour in subtle and ongoing efforts to transform their selves.

The panopticon is the famous prison design by Jeremy Bentham that Michel Foucault used as the ideal metaphor for modern societies need for discipline and normalise through observation. Foucault argued that this type of “control through observation” was not only a feature in prison, but all hierarchical structures such the army, schools, hospitals and factories. Though the panopticon design itself was actually not commonly used, thanks to Foucault it has remained iconic.

What struck me was how I recognized from this idea how people’s awareness of being monitored making them reflect on the minutia of their own behavior. I have more than have a few friends who have become camera shy because they know that any images taken could end up on Facebook with their name on it. Some people even immediately remove all photo tags of themselves as soon as they appear. As Facebook has become more mainstream and people are befriending more broadly (relatives and colleagues instead of just university buddies), it has caused many people to dial back on their candidness when it comes to how they represent themselves online. As evidenced by Facebook’s recent changes, the functionality of the site is intended to leave more and more user information open to the whole world, and in some cases you have to go a rather strenuous process to hide your personal information.

The overall trend in all social media seems to be about openness. Some people seem to embrace it, especially the more extrovert and dare I say egocentric ones. But some are put off by this trend of, as so eloquently put in the article, “groups which were previously exempt from routine surveillance are now increasingly being monitored.” Naturally, it’s a bit of a stretch to compare Facebook to the panopticon prison. So much of this Facebook surveillance is just us learning to “be” on Facebook, but as long as the technology is enabling this surveillance (and increasingly so), we should at least be mindful of it. As we are becoming more digital each passing year, the notion of escaping the digital gaze might become more or less socially impossible. I’ve heard a few predictions that in the future your online presence is what works as your reputation or even resume. “If you’re not online, you don’t exist”, the thinking seems to go. It’s already happening as many companies are already googling any new job applicants and going through their blogs and social media profiles.

Just be mindful of what Facebook (and social media in general) is becoming, or rather that you are being watched more and more on Facebook. At least you don’t want to end up on a site like Failbook before you get it.

Article: Haggerty, Kevin; Ericson, Richard. “The surveillant assemblage” British Journal of Sociology Vol. No. 51 Issue No. 4 (December 2000) pp. 605–622

I’ve been thinking lately that this economic downturn might spell doom for many supposedly free Web 2.0 services. AdAge for one is predicting an end to so-called “YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Socialism”. Before the recession Web 2.0 startups had plenty of VC money to go around, most of them having no real business plan other than “we hope we’ll get bought by Google”. Now, the well has dried up and startups are dying left and right. Last.fm already implemented a 3$ per month subscription plan to stop the bleeding. Last.fm is not the only incumbent feeling the pressure to show some profit potential. Most companies are finding this extremely difficult. It goes to show that “Twitter plans to make money was Wired magazine’s April Fools joke.

But what really prompted this post was something I stumbled upon when browsing through journals:

“The rhetoric of peer-to-peer informationalism…much like the rhetoric of consciousness out of which it grew, actively obscures the material and technical infrastructures on which both the Internet and the lives of the digital generation depend. Behind the fantasy of unimpeded information flow lies the reality of millions of plastic keyboards, silicon wafers, glass-faced monitors, and endless miles of cable. All of these technologies depend on manual laborers, first to build them and later to tear them apart. This work remains extraordinarily dangerous, first to those who handle the toxic chemicals required in manufacture and later to those who live on the land, drink the water, and breathe the air into which those chemicals eventually leak. These tasks continue to be the province of those who lack social and financial resources

In the 1990s, all of this work was invisible to those who promoted the Internet and the network mode of production as evidence of a new stage in human evolution. Like the communards of the 1960s, the techno-utopians of the 1990s denied their dependence on any but themselves. At the same time, they developed a way of thinking and talking about digital technologies from within which it was almost impossible to challenge their own elite status. ”

Source: “Fred Turner, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism”, Book Review by Anna McCarthy

I think there’s a somewhat similar sentiment to how people feel about services like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. People take them for granted and expect them to be free, like it’s some sort of birthright. Partly this is due to people’s (I think) misguided sense of entitlement on all things web or an inability to grasp intangible value.

Mostly however, it is the service providers’ own fault for letting people believe that all and everything should and will be free services. If VC money had been more scarce, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation now. If Facebook, for example, runs out of money and decides to charge its users, even if it’s just for 1$ per year, it’s going to be a really hard sell for the community. I’ve seen already more than one Facebook group where people pledge to leave if they have to actually pay (imagine that) for Facebook.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Services like Flickr that had a business plan from the get go are in much better shape. Most startups now probably wish they had gone that route as well.