The Panopticon Provides a Good Metaphor for Life in Contemporary Organisations and Societies. Discuss in Relation to the Work of Michel Foucalt.

The Panopticon provides a good metaphor for life in contemporary organisations and societies. Discuss in relation to the work of Michel Foucalt.

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I will be discussing how the panopticon can be a good metaphor for life in contempary organisations and societies. The panopticon is a circular building with a watch tower in the centre that allowed for the people inside the building to be observed, without being able to observe their observers, used initially in prisons. In society, the panopticon is represented by many things, mainly the government, whilst the prisoners are the civilians. In a contemporary organisation the watchtower is represented by the manager and the prisoners are represented by the workers.

The panopticon resembles modern era life in society by the fact that we are being observed everywhere we go, by the government, teachers, managers, doctors and everyone else in society. This makes us behave in a certain way, through the threat of discipline. CCTV is the most similar to the panopticons view as in modern day, wherever we go we are being watched and recorded by the government. This refers to French and ravens coercive power where others believe that the ‘power holder can administer unwelcome penalities’(French,J.R.P & Raven,B.H, 1959 150-167) such as prison. Foucalt believed that there were two types of power; Traditional- using the threat of physical violence to subjugate people and Disciplinary- using more indirect means to control people’s minds and bodies. The panopticon theory was designed for a prison but can also be used for schools, barracks, hospitals and factories. However the circular building design is impractical and buildings have been built more traditionally but with the theory of the panopticon still taking place. In a work place the theory of the panopticon works very well as the manager or team leader of the work place oversees the productivity and behaviour of the workers, to make sure they are doing their job...