Peer-to-Peer

In my paper, there is the beginning of a strong thesis but one has yet to be decided. I would like to think that, “when looking deeper into class, race, religion and sexuality and how those contribute to society we may have a problem on our hands,” would be my thesis. I have not written an introduction yet so this may be the issue. I can make this stronger by fine-tuning the thesis and by writing my introduction. Possibly by excluding religion and sexuality but I feel as though excluding those would do more harm. By not addressing those topics, I realize that I begin to contribute to the issues at hand with RT (reality television). There is more to say about the things we exclude than the things we include.

The second category I would address would be organization. I feel as though my paper flows well, but still needs some work. I am also unsure if I should continue to add my own experiences with RT or if I should not include my own feelings (from the past). By adding my own experiences I feel as though I am adding new knowledge since I have consumed RT in the past. There is also no clear introduction and conclusion as I have not started those parts of my paper yet. My peers wrote to include more evidence from the television shows themselves, so I think analyzing a few episodes may help with the organization and also my thesis.

When looking at my peer’s suggestions, I will include their ideas because they gave a lot of insight about the missing parts in my paper, like adding more evidence directly from the television shows. There were also a few small grammatical errors that need to be fixed. Their input will definitely come in handy since I am writing this for a group of my collegiate peers. Although, there were quotes used from studies that I am unable to elaborate on which were commented on. I am unsure how to explain their views without changing the quote and I cannot change the quote with my own ideas and still use it as a quote. (Hope that makes sense). Both of my peer’s praised my use of quotes and sources saying that they made my paper stronger and gave clear evidence to my argument.

When making revisions, I will make sure to further elaborate and add to the conversation. I will be working on the introduction and fine-tuning of my thesis statements and developing a stronger argument about how RT does not accurately include race, religion, sexuality, and class. By showing the pitfalls and stereotypes shows like The Real World, The Hills and Big Brother have shown, I will be contributing a new perspective to the conversation. By not including shows such as Real Housewives and The Kardashian’s, I know I am leaving out a large part of recent RT. If I were to add those, it would just show how much we really exclude other classes in our television. I may bring those shows into my argument but will not be focusing on them specifically.

Article

To find the article I used for class, I went to the UWT library page and clicked on the 'Start Research' button. From there I clicked on ‘Academic search complete’ and typed ‘surveillance’ into the first search bar and ‘study’ into the second. The words are pretty broad but I am unsure as to what I want to write my paper on so I thought those would be a good start. I then clicked the ‘full text’ and ‘Scholarly (peer reviewed) Journals.’ Next, I clicked search and it brought up over 13,000 articles. The first page was all about health related topics, so I went to the first 4 pages before clicking on the ‘research’ button. Since I still had over 1,000 articles I went back up and added ‘government’ to the last search bar. When that search also failed, I went back and deleted both ‘study’ and ‘government’ from the bars and added ‘watching’ instead. This finally brought up the article, “Who is watching over you? The role of shared identity in perceptions of surveillance.” The article is about how people view and accept surveillance. The authors research is about its perception, not about if surveillance is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (136). They found voluntary participants in England for the first study and looked at their ‘perceived surveillance concern.’ They performed 2 different studies and decided that their needed to be future research to solidify their initial findings. The article is a very dense read with a lot of scientific terms. Ultimately, they are trying to find out how much it will take people to accept CCTV (Closed circuit Television) and when they will resist it, since it is perceived as being an invasion of privacy. The background they give on CCTV is extensive, the program has put more than four million camera’s around the UK and citizens can be seen up to 300 times per day (137).  

Reading Notes on 1984

In the 1984 reading, I noticed that the government and police had the most power. They (the government) used the power of the media to place deep fears into people minds in order to control them. Winston writes that, “Last night to the flicks. All war films. One very good one of a ship full of refugees being bombed somewhere in the Mediterranean. Audience much amused by shots of a great huge fat man trying to swim away with a helicopter after him. First you saw him wallowing along in the water like a porpoise, then you saw him through the helicopters gunsights, then he was full of holes and the sea round him turned pink and he sank as suddenly as though the holes had let in the water (11).” By showing only violent images on the ‘television’ can begin to put a reality to those images, even if the images are fake shown enough times people may begin to think these events are really happening. While the writing was not an actual event, it conjured up another memory that had happened earlier in the day. I believe that this happens to me sometimes. Sometimes I will remember something that I thought happened to someone but come to find out it was part of a series on television or somehow my brain blurred the two similar stories into one. There is also the problem of viewing people on television and thinking that because you have seen so much of their lives unfold on screen, that off-screen you know them as a person, too. With the media and modern-day surveillance I think this is becoming the ‘norm’. We feel closer to those we see on shows like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Jersey Shore’ than we do to people sitting right next to us on the room. I am not sure why we sympathize so much with those we do not know but see on screen.

Panopticon or early day prisons?

Foucault says that the function of the panopticon is a “machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad: in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing; in the central tower, one sees everything without ever being seen.” (202) Foucault lays out his idea of the panopticon much different than Bentham. He believes that it is intend to segregate those who are in need of segregation but also those who are not. That this ‘machine’ like building is going to be used in order to keep people apart and make them self-aware of their aloneness. While Bentham views the building as a type of community setting where those who live there must be watched, but also participate fully in the running of the building, such as with the water systems they plan to incorporate. Both authors seem to be similar in the beliefs of needing a central building in order to keep a close watch on those obtained. Foucault and Bentham both agree that the power of the inspectors should be, “visible and unverifiable.” (201) By that Bentham means that, “Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the ventral tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment, but he must be sure that he may always be so. In order to make the presence or absence of the inspector unverifiable, so that the prisoners, in their cells, cannot even see a shadow.” (201)

I believe both authors are laying the ground work for how we run our prisons and hospitals today. The main idea that, “the Panopticon also does the work of a naturalist. It makes it possible to draw up differences: among patients, to observe the symptoms of each individual, without the proximity of beds, the circulation of miasmas, the effects of contagion confusing the clinical tables,” is how we treat and observe patients of all kinds (mental health, operation, inmates) now-a-days.

How I efficiently take notes...

Letter I

           

House of Corrections (H.O.C.)

-          Planning to build

-          Letter writers Brother “contrived” (1) something similar

-          Named; “Inspection House” (1)

-          Wants to provide ideas to the person establishing the house

-          “within a space not too large to be covered or commanded by buildings, a number of persons are meant to be kept under inspection.” (2)

-          “no matter how different, or even opposite the purpose; whether it be that of punishing the incorrigible, guarding the insane, reforming the vicious, confining the suspected, employing the idle, maintaining the helpless, curing the sick, instructing the willing in any branch of industry, or training the rising race in the path of education: in a word whether it be applied to the purposes of perpetual prisons in the room of death, or prisons for confinement before trial, or penitentiary-houses, or houses of correction, or work-houses, or manufactories, or mad-houses, or hospitals, or schools.” (2)

      This quote sums up why we need these spaces and what they can be used for.

-          “Such are those which have suggested the idea of Penitentiary-houses: in which the objects of safe-custody, confinements, solitude, forced labour and instruction, were all of them to be kept in view If all these objects can be accomplished together, of course with at least equal certainty and facility may any lesser number of them.” (4)

      Gives insight into why you need all these things in order to accomplish a successful prison.

Letter II

Plan for the Inspection House

-          Cells

        -    apartments in which prisoners inhabit, divided from one another so each person is, “secluded from all communication with another” (5)

-    Partitions

        -    will extend as many feet as necessary.

-    Inspectors Lodge

        -    apartment where the Inspector cohabits

-   Intermediate or Annular Area

        -  vacant space for the prisoners

-    Passage

        - “about the width of the cell from the outside of the building to the Lodge.” (6)

-     Window

       - “large enough, not only to light the Cell, but, through the Cell, to afford light enough to the correspondent part of the Lodge.” (6)

-    Grating

     - “inner circumference is formed by iron grating, so light as not to screen any part of the Cell from the Inspector’s view.” (6)

-          Warning Bells

   -  An alarming system to ensure safety