Many of the characteristics associated with disciplinary power described by Foucault, such as the function of enclosure, the creation of self-control, and the training of human multiplicity, are apt characterizations of the kind of enclosed architecture of Facebook and its subtle demands for participation and interaction. However, if we follow Foucault in his understanding of surveillance as a form of “permanent visibility,” then this notion fails to capture the algorithmic logic of creating modalities of visibility that are not permanent but temporary, that are not equally imposed on everyone and oscillate between appearing and disappearing. While it is true that Foucault described organizations of power within a somewhat fixed technological and architectural form, the idea that architectural plans structurally impose visibility does not seem to come in conflict with the unstable and changing arrangements characteristic of new media. Spaces, both digital and physical, are always delimitated in one way or another. That does not mean they cannot also expand or change as new elements come along. As Foucault sees it, discipline is centripetal, security centrifugal. This is to say that discipline functions to isolate a space or determine a segment, whereas the apparatuses of security “have the constant tendency to expand” by having new elements integrated all the time (Foucault, 2007: 67). Security does not supersede discipline, just as discipline does not replace sovereignty but rather complements and adds to it (Foucault, 2007: 22).
Life at the Top
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