Surveillance Project

a)

After comparing instances of surveillance in our everyday life, we found that surveillance is ubiquitous in our everyday life. Some instances of surveillance are: red light cameras, surveillance cameras at stores, the MU, buses, cell phone, and Internet. We are constantly under surveillance, being watched and tracked, or being made aware of these instances of surveillance. Surveillance is not confined to space: we might expect surveillance in public space and commercially owned properties, but in the privacy of our own space, surveillance in the form of tracking through cell phones and internet are present, if not 24 hours a day.
We are exposed to media and surveillance throughout the day and from public space to the privacy of our own home. Media and surveillance are part of our everyday life (and in term, part of human subjects). It is not clear which theorist's idea on media-human subject relation apply the best, but what's clear is this: media makes allowances for the public sphere to merge into the private sphere, and vise versa.

this is a good example of affairs in the public sphere merging in the private sphere: as a photo taken during the 48 hour “private moments” period, dinner time at the privacy of the house is combined with study time for school.



b)
Being in the public sphere, or to be made into a subject in the public sphere, definitely made me feel as if I have little privacy-- during the 24 hours of surveying surveillances, like Foucault's prisoners in Panopticon, although the surveillance is not everywhere and any time, being aware of the possibility of under surveillance made me self-surveil and self-regulate myself to behave in ways that bear greater coherence with socially acceptable public behaviors.
During the 48 hours of self-surveillance, my actions aligned themselves to present a human subject that reflect the social norm and/or or reflect my ideal self: there were definitely less instances of procrastination-- I was a quite responsible student and adult. Some other actions, however, reflect difficulties and anxieties toward being in public, and be subjugated to the gaze-- such as in the case of this:

presumably, this is an attempt to exert some agency-- distorting the human subject into an eye-eyed eggsandwich freak monster is, apparently, a proven-true tactic to repel the spectator's desire to exert power and dominance in his or her gaze.

c)
Media's role in my sense of public self tend to be of social control and regulation. Cameras installed by businesses and government play the role of the hidden guard in the Panopticon. And media in the capture model regulate my behavior and reinforces hegemonic dominance, as in the case of internet.
Media is integrated into my private life through the capture model. I use cell phone for communication with family and friends, and I use internet for entertainment and art-related affairs, which I consider to be private.
A public persona is useful when I am in the public sphere-- representing myself to be in coherence with hegemony yields rewards that are, unfortunately, sometimes necessary.