According to Staples (2000), the characteristics of postmodern social control are meticulous rituals of power and are 1) “systematic, methodical, and automatic in operation” (p. 4). It is video cameras and databases, able to be accessed by computers. Techniques are also “increasingly technology-based…and sometimes anonymously applied, and they usually, generate a permanent record as evidence” (p.11). 2) These meticulous rituals of power control the body in two ways: a) “continuously, anonymously, and automatically” (p.5) and b) “the ability of organizations to monitor, judge, or even regulate our actions and behaviors through our bodies is significantly enhanced” (p. 5), and our bodies are objects that contain information to be analyzed and judged. “Many new techniques target and treat the body as an object that can be watched, assessed, and manipulated” (p.11). 3) Instead of an older model of control in which we lock up deviants, there is a push to control “deviants” without first locking them up through things like community corrections, regulatory welfare and other social services (p.6). “The new techniques are often local, operating in our everyday lives” (p. 11). 4) Not only are “deviants” under the gaze of control, and innocent until proven guilty is seemingly a cliché. Data generated through surveillance produces “types” that are at “risk” for behavior. This moves punishment from the individual deviant to the overall “type.” “Local or not, they manage to bring wide-ranging populations, not just the official “deviant,” under scrutiny” (p. 11).
References:
Staples, W. G. (2000). Everyday surveillance: Vigilance and visibility in postmodern life. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.