Panopticism In Social Media

The way social media is utilized in modern society, it has become more than simple platforms in order to stay connected. It has become a platform to broadcast you, to sell the image of the life that the user wants to portray. Now selling yourself as an internet presence is possible, and is done regularly with platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and the focus of this essay, Instagram. This current utilization of social media is a result of the established capitalist institution that our society is a part of. Yet is it capitalism that is made to be the villain in social media, that now that social media is such a widespread entity, capitalist power players are able to take advantage of the common social media user, all while they are completely

What originally started as a basis for a prison system has evolved into a constant way of thinking. When looked at in a sense of bigger entities, such as advertisers, being able to watch the masses on a social platform, panopticism perfectly applies. There is a surveillance implemented and there is the implication that one is constantly being watched. This constant surveillance results in a community that self-disciplines. While in the original design applied to prisoners that has no choice but to adapt to this way of living, now there exists a population of social media users that unconsciously embrace this way portraying how they live, and use it to make themselves an entity to be

The principles for proper conduct is in the manner to get the most attention. Now the ones who watch are desired, and even performed for. Trottier explores Erving Goffman’s work on self-presentation as he applies Shakesphere’s notion of ‘all the worlds a stage’ by “framing social life as a series of performances”. The deliberate and strategic manner in which the social interactions take place are especially prevalent in the way social media is used, because in most cases the pictures posed for are literally staged, acted out in the way that best presents them. The stage lighting can easily be adjusted with the proper filters that Instagram offers, and all steps are taken in a way to best please the audience who wants to see a show. There’s a reason most Instagram pages of popular users aren’t filled with unflattering pictures, and why #crossfit and #vegan, trending fads that are popularly displayed via social media, have more than 30 million combined posts. The goal is to seem as desirable as possible. With this goal of being so accessible, to want to be viewed, develops a self-scrutiny of panopticism (Trottier, 2012) because users are “policing” their own behavior, in a way achieves their goal most seamlessly. By adding the right hashtags to a picture, even if it has nothing to do with the