In applying Foucault’s concept of Panopticism to the surveillance of personal blogs I will use Deleuze’s critique found in Postscripts. I should also use Foucault’s own critique based on his development of the concept of pastoral power as set out in Subjectivity and Power. Pastoral power is much more modular and smooth then the exercise of power through the spatially bound panopticon. Pastoral power retains a sense of the authoritative gaze that is more reliant on the revealing of a person’s inner thoughts than is found in the gaze of the panopticon. Pastoral power involves a greater level of participation by the subject although the aspects of internalisation of governance have similarities.
