ashlayla, Foucault (w/ reference to Happy Birthday!'s post)

The Foucault reading was a difficult read and hard for me to understand what Foucault was discussing. One part that I found interesting was how Foucault included the description of how order was established during the plague in the 17th century. But I understand the importance of the order that the 17th century people needed because if there had been no order, chaos would have occurred and more people would have died from the plague.

Although I have never heard of panopticon, I have unconsciously used it. Foucault describes panopticon as a “…mechanism [that] arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to recognize immediately.” (97) I realized after reading this quote that I have used the panopticon technique before and I have used it a lot, especially at the mall. When I am eating at the mall in the food court I like to “people watch.” I people watch because I think it’s interesting to see what bags shoppers are carrying and I think it’s interesting to watch their reactions to the people around them. Panopticon is also something that celebrities and high profile politicians deal with almost on a daily basis. Like what Happy Birthday! said in their post, people who are constantly in the spotlight are being watched like hawks. The media always hovers around their homes and the places that the frequently visit. Whenever I get on the internet and go to the Yahoo! homepage, I almost always see a new story about some celebrity and what happened to them that day or that week. The media uses panopticon to put the daily lives of celebrities and high profile politicians and on display for the larger public to read or watch. If Lindsay Lohan gets into the face of the paparazzi or if Avril Lavinge gives the finger to another photographer we are bound to hear about it because the media is going to publish it for all to see. Panopticon was easier for me to understand than most of the concepts that Foucault discussed because I have used the technique before…I just never realized it.