Foucault's Concept Of Panopticon

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MEAMO, BENJAMIN GEORGE III P. COMM 140 G Public markets are spaces in a community where trade, services, and other activities occur. Vendors, buyers, and even bystanders are the types of people who interact within this public space. Markets act as open areas for activities and daily communicative interaction of people. The interactions between the vendors, buyers, and bystanders result to various products of communication which create transformations. For instance, from a regular trade section of rice dealers to a space for a Catholic mass, the rice section along Magsaysay Avenue, Baguio City, undergone transformation. The transformations are created and recognized by people. These are tactical transformations that correspond to practices separate from the regulations established and implemented within the space. Given this premise, I intend to do a field research as an approach in studying the public market of Baguio City, specifically to look at the activities and actions of people within the space. As a guide in analyzing the communication phenomenon, I will use Michel Foucault’s concept of discipline, power, and Panopticon together with Michel De Certeau’s strategy and tactics. Foucault says that panopticon is “a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men” (Foucault 1975, 205). Through Michel Foucault’s concept of panopticon, the focus of the study will be the performance of tactics by vendors, buyers, and the bystanders as

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