Power is a word that is thrown around a lot. Just think of all the quotes you can riff: "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely"; "With great power comes great responsibility"...
These phrases are clichés, which by their definition tend to become placeholders or substitutes for careful thought. Despite the ubiquity of power and its various forms in our lives, we rarely stop to analyse its various workings, nature, or operations in the detail that our readings did this week.
How does power work in online social networks? Many people might say it's as simple as trolling, bullying, or surveillance; indeed, understandably, many people refuse to engage with online social networks because of these aspects of online communication. These are some of the unmissable aspects, or "modalities" of power online (Allen, 2011, p.11), but they are not the whole story.
As Allen (2011) argues, despite the fact that we might be tempted to see "power as something that turns up more or less everywhere," (p.11) it is useful to focus on "the particularities of power" and its "diverse and specific modalities" (p.11.) Arguably, the nature of power in online social networks is deceptively complicated, and it varies according to what social network you are analysing, the position of the "actor" in the network (Kuttainen, 2020), and what aspect of communication you consider.
Although some argue that large companies like Twitter and Tik-Tok are harvesting our data and using this to change the nature of government in coercive ways, it's the subtler dynamics of power online that interest me. As Rayner (2012) explains, Foucault’s extended metaphor of Bentham’s panopticon can be used to explain how people often behave as if they are under surveillance even when they are not. Rayner (2012) shows how the nature of being watched, or thinking your are being watched online, changes behavior in sometimes insidious ways that translate to our lives offline as well:
When I first joined Twitter a few years ago, I found the experience immediately disempowering. Big, loud celebrities had all the power and all the followers. But as I have familiarized myself with Twitter, I have come to understand that it is possibly changing the nature of social power. Certainly I was self-conscious: I had few followers and I didn't know who to follow or what information I was giving away to third parties. However, over time, I have realised I can use Twitter as a tool. I mainly use it for my academic work.
Whereas Facebook tends to encourage the sharing on private life, and online news aggregators tend to follow world and local events, I have cultivated a Twitter feed that follows academic news which I might not otherwise get. This has felt empowering to me. Although I am not in the centre of power, or even at a metropolitan university, I can socialise, to an extent, with academics from universities around the world.
Does it cause me to regulate my behavior? Maybe, but only as I would do so in any professional forum. Have I sold my soul as analytics? I don't think so, but time will tell... (553 words).
Reference List
Allen, J. (2003). Lost geographies of power. Malden, MA.: Blackwell.
Frost, L. You probably didn’t read the most compelling part of Orwell’s 1984: The appendix. Retrieved 27 July 2020 from http://qz.com/95696/you-probably-didnt-read-the-most-telling-part-of-orwells-1984-the- appendix/
Kuttainen, V. (2020). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 3 Power. [PowerPoint slides and Collaborate Lecture]. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au
Panapticon. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved 27 July 2020 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
Rayner, T. (2012). Foucault and social theory: Life in a virtual panopticon. Retrieved 27 July 2020 from https://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/foucault-and-social-media-life-in-a-virtual-panopticon/
Image Credits
Solomon, D. (2008). Presidio Prison. Retrieved from Culturemass.com Presidio modelo2.jpg
Hi everyone, I've posted this blog post to give you an example of what we will be doing together in Weeks 3 and 4. The first blog is just for practice, and then you choose a week between Weeks 5 and 8 (inclusive) to post your second blog, for marks. Finally, by Monday Week 9 you submit this assessment item in the dropbox on LearnJCU. Please do engage with one another in encouraging, scholarly ways on the class blog. On top of buidling skills around synthesising your readings, applying scholarly ideas to everyday life, writing and referencing in APA, and building your digital competencies, students on both campuses (Cairns or Townsville) and in all modes of this subject, internal and external, will contribute and so this blog will give us a sense of cohort unity and identity. See the Subject Outline for the criteria for what we are looking for you on your blog posts. We will cover this in class as well.
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