Who has the power?
Image from: panopticontheory
I decided to use a social network that I am
already a member of. A couple of years ago I got tricked, like everybody else,
into becoming a Facebook member. It all started when my friends joined in, and
posted pictures of me that I could not see. In all curiosity I had to become a
member to see what kind of pictures they were posting of me.
It is hard to describe how the power works in the virtual network, just because there are so many different factors that play a part. Facebook is described as a network where you can communicate and socialise with anyone you want. When Facebook just got introduced, it got a lot of members. Even my mother joined in, because she found it useful that she could communicate with old classmates. Sometimes it seems that the power within Facebook comes from how many friends you have. Depending on how many friends you have can be related to how popular you are. According to John Allen: “Power is a relational effect of social interaction.” (Allen, 2003) This can be explained as power laying within what you do about having that many friends on Facebook. In lecture, Dr Theresa Petray (2013) explained how power only could occur when there is somebody around to give us the opportunity.
We could also say that the members on Facebook are being watched like the prisoners did when they invented the panopticon. As it was written in this weeks reading: “Cyberspace can offer an omnipotent voyeurism comparable to the scopic power offered to the guards within the Panopticon prison” (Barnes, 1997). The power that the site operators have, depend on what kind of information we give them.
It is hard to describe how the power works in the virtual network, just because there are so many different factors that play a part. Facebook is described as a network where you can communicate and socialise with anyone you want. When Facebook just got introduced, it got a lot of members. Even my mother joined in, because she found it useful that she could communicate with old classmates. Sometimes it seems that the power within Facebook comes from how many friends you have. Depending on how many friends you have can be related to how popular you are. According to John Allen: “Power is a relational effect of social interaction.” (Allen, 2003) This can be explained as power laying within what you do about having that many friends on Facebook. In lecture, Dr Theresa Petray (2013) explained how power only could occur when there is somebody around to give us the opportunity.
We could also say that the members on Facebook are being watched like the prisoners did when they invented the panopticon. As it was written in this weeks reading: “Cyberspace can offer an omnipotent voyeurism comparable to the scopic power offered to the guards within the Panopticon prison” (Barnes, 1997). The power that the site operators have, depend on what kind of information we give them.
Reference List
Allen, J. (2003) Lost in geographies of power. Malden, Ma: Blackwell
Barnes, G. (1997) Passage of the cyber-flaneur. Retrieved from http://www.raynbird.com/essays/Passage_Flaneur.html
Turkle, S.(1995) Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. (pp.246-249). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster
Image Credits
Kelly, Kathryn. (2012) Facebook - The digital Gaze. Retrieved from panopticontheory.
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