Blog 1: Who Holds the Power?

 

Blog 1: Who Holds the Power?

By Sophie Boden

Image from: http://www.business2community.com/trends-news/10-most-connected-countries-on-facebook-0343256

How many of us really take the time to scrutinise, analyse even ponder an activity we do daily? I certainly don’t. However, I began the task of investigating social networking with enthusiasm. 

Initially, I spent time observing my virtual network: Facebook. I subscribed to Facebook three years ago, mainly to communicate with friends locally and globally. Facebook is fantastic for providing instantaneous chat and event notifications. When it suddenly occurred to me that I was doing it all from the comfort of home. I began to consider how this influenced my sense and feeling of power.

It was stated in the Allen (2003) reading that ‘power is inherently spatial’. This got me wondering about the relationship between space, power and Facebook. Was sitting at home empowering or disempowering? The familiarity of my surroundings was certainly unthreatening, overall providing me with a sense of power.

Turkle (1995) proposed another interesting characteristic of power, ‘power in modern society is imposed … by the way each individual learns the art of self-surveillance’. A great example of this was the Panopticon discussed in the week two lecture. The chief purpose of the Panopticon is to instil the art of ‘self-surveillance’ (Petray, 2013). The relationship between space and power again evident, as the physical space of the Panopticon altered the power dynamic.

Startlingly, when I compared Facebook to the Panopticon there were many similarities. I could scroll through numerous comments and view photo albums. Essentially, I could watch someone without them knowing. Unsurprisingly, I was not the first person to stumble on this coincidence with many such as the Social Theory blog posting similar experiences.  

Thus far I can already begin to see how Facebook is inherently linked with power, making me more curious. What else am I missing?  

Reference List

Allen, J. (2003). Introduction: Lost geographies, in Lost geographies of power (1-12). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Ayoub, A. (n.d.) Facebook as Panopticon?. Retrieved from http://social-theory.tumblr.com/facebookpanop

Petray, T. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, week 2 notes. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

Turkle, S. (1995). Panopticon, in Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet (pp. 246-249). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Image Credits

Wilson, R. (2012). 10 Most Connected Countries on Facebook. Retrieved from http://www.business2community.com/trends-news/10-most-connected-countries-on-facebook-0343256