ABSTRACT
The panopticon is an architectural design for a prison, which was used by the French social historian Michel Foucault (1977) as an ‘ideal type’ to explore how discipline was utilised by the state in mid-nineteenth-century France. In this context, an ideal type provides a typifi cation of a phenomenon, constructed by extracting its essential characteristics, and its purpose is to provide a structure against which real examples may be compared. Consequently the concept of the panopticon has broad appeal to social-cultural researchers exploring surveillance practices, as it offers a theoretical framework that aids in the gathering and analysis of empirical data.
