The Panopticon legacy: A Systematic Literature Review of Difficult Conversations on Social Networking Sites (SNS) and Social Media Surveillance

Abstract

After datafication of society, social networking sites (SNS) have emerged as a progressive platform where citizens freely express their opinions. Following the spread of social media, interdisciplinary notion of surveillance is becoming popular among researchers and scholars of social sciences for understanding how activities are being monitored by government and other corporate organizations. This paper is an attempt to explore how people are continuously under surveillance when they are involved in difficult conversations on social media platforms. The basic aim is to conceptualise various approaches of surveillance in the light of Bentham and Foucault’s concept of Panopticon. For developing a synthesis, systematic review of existing literature is conducted related to Panopticon legacy, social media surveillance and difficult conversations on SNS. The paper concludes that governments and corporate organizations keep a continuous covert check on what people post, share, comment and like on SNS especially when they are involved in digital activism or conflict-related conversations to regulate their online behavior.