task 3

Post a proposal for your Level 5 essay on to your CTS blogs. This proposal should clearly outline what you are intending to study and include  

Title - Do brands have control over our society?  

I want to look into the relationship of power between our society and brands with reference to changing world of fashion. In the essay I will discuss individuality, advertisements, manipulation, power, control, vulnerabilty and the possibilty of change.    

Kalle Lasn (2000). culture jam. US: Eagle Brook. 
Really interesting book on branding. It'll help with creating a better understanding of the power of brands & will hopefully open my eyes to the change that could potentially happen if we stood up against branding.

Naomi Klein (2010). no logo. london: fourth estate
An insight into mass marketing and the anti-corporate activism.

Wally Olins (2005). on brand. london: thames and Hudson
This book will help me understand how brands are so successful.

Kidd, W, (2002) 'Culture and Identity', Warren Kid
I'm expecting this to aid me with looking at our society and the effect branding has on it.

Foucault, M, (2005) 'Materialism and education'
Really interesting theories that will aid my argument and open points of discussion.

Adbusters. campaigns: http://www.adbusters.org/blogs. 
Really respect what Adbusters stand for and the campaigns they create, such as 'Buy Nothing Day'. There will definitely be some interesting points of consumerism.

task 1

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 200-300 words

 



I've chosen to discuss speed cameras as an aspect of our culture that works in a panoptic nature to enforce authority. Speed cameras were set up in order to regulate the speed of which you're traveling and to improve general road safety. The reason this has been successful in creating this control derives from the idea that 'visibilty is a trap' (Foucault, 1977)

Speed cameras are placed adjacent to the road on which you're traveling and point into the direction of the car that's approaching. The intention of this is to create 'a society of self-regulating, docile bodies in fear of exposure- of themselves or of their deviant actions.' (Foucault, 1977) In other words, to acheive a form of obedience within society, people must feel that there's a sense of high-ranking power that has a watchful eye on their behavior. Speed cameras do this effectively. When approaching a camera, a driver tends to get 3 visual warnings that a camera is coming up. This means that a driver uses this time to adjust their speed in order to meet the standards of the requested speed limit. Although there is a large percentage of the worlds populations that exceed the speed limit, most of these people will slow down when approaching a camera as it becomes apparent that their action are being observed.

Jeremy Bentham developed the Panopticon in which cells are arranged around a central tower containing guards. Each cell would be exposed to the rest of the building populace ensuring that not only do the prisoners feel a sense of vulnerability but they're completely exposed. It's this exposure that creates a certain insecurity leading people to act in a way in which they think will acceptable in society. As Foucault states, 'Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility thats assures the automatic functioning of power.' (Foucault, 1977)

Personally what I find most interesting about Panopticism is that no-one actually forces this control. By simply having a watchful eye over someone you can control and regulate their actions in a way that creates dominance. People become so aware of how they 'should' act and in a sense lose that autonomy or that freedom. 'He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power,' (Foucault, 1977) touches on the idea that in order for someone to have supremacy, you must allow them of this.

Speed cameras are one of many ways in which disciplinary mechanisms  are applied in our society, in order to achieve the ostensible 'utopia of a perfectly governed city.' (Foucault, 1977)

panopticism notes

- the transaction from physical to mental control

- turning you into a productive person of society

- to conform and control

- PANOPTICON, Jeremy Beniham, 1791.

-designing a building to make people more productive, fro schools, hospitals etc.

-cannot see anyone else, productivity through isolation. constantly visible. power. constantly illuminated.

- power is a relationship. for someone to gain power, there must be someone allowing them to have the control.

-e.g. feminism, women in the past have allowed men to have that hierarchy of power

- CCTV, Facebook, twitter, gym, 5 a day, alcohol units, speed cameras.

-you don't know if there are actually a camera inside.

- self regulation.

-no need to be directed/controlled.

-acting in a way that others would approve of e.g. politicians

- educational institution, teaching people to be a certain way

- turning you into a docile body

TASK
write a 300 word analysis of something panoptic in our world
take 5 quotes from the text.