Foucault & Nakamura: Who’s got power?

I guess the hope of the internet, kind of like what Clay Shirky was getting at in his book, is that the open design of the internet can somehow transcend all barriers and be completely fair in an ideal world. It’s very optimistic and idealic, and I think the Foucault and Nakamura readings this week completely grounded us after reading Shirky. They argue that other side, that the internet is just another tool, and that the hegemony of society doesn’t necessarily go away with the internet.

From what I know about Foucault, for him, everything is about power. Speaking truth to power, who has power, who wants power, etc. He sees power as the core to all relationships. And knowledge and truth exist because of power. Having knowledge is a power over those who do not. Which leads to the divide between the haves and the have-nots.

“It is not the activity of the subject of knowledge that produces a corpus of knowldge, useful or resistant to power; but power-knowledge, the processes and struggles that traverse it and which it is made up, that determines the forms and possible domains of knowledge...” (Foucault)

It’s a dichotomy: Knowledge exists with power. One can’t exist without the other (for Foucault). Those in power control individuals to keep the society regulated and in control.

Power takes the form of discipline with the Panopticon, which to my understanding, represents how people are controlled and managed. The prison and the penitentiary manage people’s behavior, efficiently. In the Panopticon, the power is visible, it is a surveillance system that doesn’t try to hide. Think of the red-light cameras. They all have signs up that tell drivers that they are at an intersection with red-light cameras. The signs are visible reminders of the power that the officials have over drivers. They have that power to fine you for running the light at all times, and because that camera is visible, the power is maintained. The internet doesn’t work outside this concept. There are ways in which every click you make is tracked. And it’s not really secret either, thus acting the same as the red-light cameras, playing the part of that visible watch-dog, happily wagging it’s power tail.

Cybertyping reminds me of remediation to borrow from our previous readings. The internet ‘cybertypes’ people just as in prvious mediums. Minorities are remastered to be different or to at least seem different. This is a similar hegemony to Foucault. Putting people into ‘us vs. them,’ ‘others,’ or ‘haves and have-nots.’ No matter what you want to call the groups, it’s still a result of who has power and who doesn’t, and the power is always based on those-who-have-it’s standard of power.

How Foucault and Nakamura relate to new and emerging technologies, is that technology can be a tool of power and control.

“Power is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the ‘privilege.’ acquired or preserved, of the dominate class, but the overall effect of its strategic position of those who are dominated.” (Foucault)

You might think that power is a numbers game, but Foucault seems to say that it is more a strategy game. Its not just the largest group who holds power, and we can see that in just about any government system. Those in power are of a small portion of the population. The wealthy, the educated, the well connected. Even the systems that call themselves ‘democracies.’ They should be open and free so that theoretically everyone holds power, but look at our system, it’s not a pure democracy, but a representational one. There are steps to ensure that the people do not have complete control. The Electoral College is a prime example. The people cannot directly elect their national leader. The system exists as a kind of barrier, kind of like a Panopticon designed to manage the people. I suppose on the one side you might say that it is a way of maintaining some consistency, or keeping the system stable. Stability is a worry for those designing a government, and if you think about democracy is just one step away from anarchy. Pure democracy could be the equivalent of a ‘pure internet.’ where ideally everything works smoothly without management, and hegemony doesn’t exist. Whether that is truly ever possible, well it doesn’t seem likely to me, but then again all I know is hegemony because I live in the current, and power is unescapable.