With reference to Foucault’s concept of panopticism, my aim in this chapter has been to argue for the usefulness of applying an analytics of visibility to (im)material architectures. Following Foucault’s assertion that “the Panopticon must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power in terms of the everyday life of men” (1977: 205), a diagrammatic understanding of the news feed algorithm provides a constructive entry point for investigating how diferent regimes of visibilities materialize. Taking the material dimensions of social media seriously reveals how politics and power operate in the technical infrastructure of these platforms. In Foucault’s terms, the news feed can be understood as a form of government in which the right disposition of things are arranged to lead to a suitable end (2007: 96). Algorithms, it was argued, are key to the disposition of things or what Ranciere would call the distribution the sensible. What the operational logic of the news feed ranking algorithm reveals is a reversal of Foucault’s notion of surveillance. Participatory subjectivity is not constituted through the imposed threat of an all-seeing vision machine but, rather, by the constant possibility of disappearing and becoming obsolete.
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