Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Foucault's Ideas about Social Control. Have the paper e-mailed to you 24/7/365.
Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 3 page paper examines the author's work entitled Discipline & Punish. It is discussed as it respects social control. Examples are provided. No additional sources cited.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: RT13_SA507Fou.rtf
Buy This Term Paper »
Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
are video cameras everywhere catching criminals in various acts and then there are unscrupulous individuals who put hidden cameras in ones abode only to snatch the film and post it
on the Internet. Privacy is disintegrating, but what some people are concerned with is not so much privacy but the lengths that government goes to effect social control. Indeed, while
peoples privacy may have always been somewhat up for grabs, it is the control by government forces that is disturbing. Today, it seems that government is everywhere and Michel Foucault
made the point that there is that omniscient public gaze. It is this uncomfortable gaze that seems to be the problem. Foucault (1995) writes: "In the perfect camp, all power
would be exercised solely through exact observation; each gaze would form a part of the overall functioning of power" (155). Indeed, watching becomes a form of social control. While the
above may appear to be a trivial sentence, the author pares down todays major method of exercising public power, which is that gaze. There is always somebody watching. The
concept is similar to Orwells 1984. In Discipline & Punish, Foucault (1995) points to a variety of methods used but watching seems to be the primary tool, at least
figuratively. It is used in the well known Panopticon paradigm as well. The Panopticon is an interesting model that had been created to foster the ideal setting for prison life.
It was never meant to be anything else, but as one combs through the literature, one sees that such principles had been applied to other endeavors. The Panopticon which had
originally been conceived by Jeremy Bentham, is adopted by Foucault. The Panopticon , as Foucault (1995) remarks is a machine for "dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring,
...