Virtual electronic panoptism and his threat to the exercise of critical attitude

Abstract

Inspired by Michel Foucault's ideas, especially his exposition of the panoptic operational model in disciplinary society, the text wants to verify how groups with privileged strategic positions in the exercise of power, defined by their economic positions, may be using electronic tools, such as social networks, to obtain a huge amount of insider information from users of these networks. These data are treated through the use of the most diverse and advanced branches of knowledge, thus, transforming this information into the specific knowledge, and through the use of this developed knowledge, it seems possible to exert great power of normalization over human behaviors. It is understood that this normalizing action can represent a risk to the possibility of the exercise of the critical attitude.